Matthew Ricketson has worked as an academic and journalist for four decades. He has worked on staff at The Age, The Australian and Time Australia magazine, among others. He has run journalism programs in three universities – RMIT, University of Canberra and now Deakin University, where he is a professor of Communications. He is a chief investigator on three Australian Research Council grants about the state of journalism in Australia. He is the author of three books and editor of two. In 2011 he was appointed by the federal government to assist Ray Finkelstein QC in an independent inquiry into the media and media regulation.