Gadget Guy’s Chris Button took home Best Technology Reviewer at this year’s Samsung Australian IT Journalism Awards. He was still processing his Lizzies win when Influencing called days after the event.  Button has entered the Lizzies several times in the past, but wondered if his copy would ever be considered deserving of an award.  “I've tried to work on my craft for a while,” Button says. “To reach that point where the judges and the community think it was award-winning worthy was quite the thrill.  “For many years I freelanced, covering video games primarily. It's only in recent years, thanks to the encouragement of Seamus Byrne when I was working with him at Byteside, that I have ventured more into consumer technology. “To win Best Technology Reviewer is something I'm proud of. There are a lot of people whose work I look up to, and to have my name up there listed with them is a massive honour.” Butto

IGN’s Luke Reilly says there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to his video game reviews. That’s “without any intention to minimise the work” of his game-reviewing colleagues, Reilly noted while discussing his win in the Best Game Reviewer category at the 2026 Samsung Australian IT Journalism Awards.  “There’s a written component, which is an extensive traditional in-depth review for people to read. But there’s also a video pillar to IGN’s reviews,” Reilly told Influencing.  That video pillar includes “exhaustive video capture” and voiceover work that is packaged into a “highly curated product”.  “It isn't a couple of stretches of miscellaneous gameplay whacked under a voiceover. This is fastidiously edited, which marries up to match the voiceover provided to form a useful video review of a game that you're interested in,” he said.  Reilly said video

Front page news for Thursday, April 9th 2026 Middle East ceasefire shakes markets — and Australia’s fuel security nerves A US-Iran ceasefire and plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz have eased immediate fears of a wider conflict, sending oil prices down and lifting sharemarkets. But the truce is fragile and the strategic contest over shipping lanes remains, keeping pressure on Canberra to plan for future shocks and strengthen fuel resilience. Covered by: Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Australian Financial Review, The West Australian, The Advertiser, Sydney Morning Herald. Petrol price relief: promise, pushback and a long wait at the bowser As global oil prices slide, some outlets are signalling fuel relief for motorists in coming months, while others warn supply disruptions and retail pricing cycles could keep prices elevated for longer. The debate has quickly broadened into a national security and cost-of-living issue, with calls for bigger fuel reserves

Upcoming Assembly elections across five states are expected to provide a significant boost to India’s media sector, with incremental advertising spends estimated at Rs 1,200–1,400 crore in the coming weeks. The elections in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry, spanning 824 constituencies and around 17.4 crore voters, are likely to drive this growth. Political advertising is set to benefit news channels, print, outdoor, and digital platforms. According to e4m, experts believe regional media will see the most gains, with television providing scale, print offering local reach, and digital enabling targeted communication. Overall, the election period is expected to bring 3–5 per cent quarterly growth for media companies and agencies, reinforcing the role of elections in supporting ad revenues.

Image of the Day   Voter roll purge in West Bengal: 27 lakh deleted, rights concerns grow Ravik Bhattacharya, Atri Mitra and Sweety Kumari for The Indian Express reported that over 60 lakh names in West Bengal are under review, with over 27 lakh already deleted from electoral rolls after a verification drive by the Election Commission of India. The deletions, revealed on Tuesday, affect many who had voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.  Citizens like migrant worker Antu Sheikh were issued notices over discrepancies, attended hearings, and submitted documents, but were still removed.  Whose fault is it that we can’t vote? If we protest, the police will put us behind bars. I applied online to the tribunal yesterday. I voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls at the primary school in our village. Every time there is an election, I make it a point to return home. This time, I am home but cannot vote,” said Antu.  The process has forced many to approach tribunals, raising conce

Rejimon Kuttappan is an investigative journalist and forced labour investigator based in Kerala, India. He was Chief Reporter at the Times of Oman until 2017, when he was deported by the Omani government for publishing a front-page story exposing human trafficking of migrant domestic workers in the Gulf. Rather than step back, he went further — collaborating with the Associated Press, Human Rights Watch, the ILO, and the International Trade Union Confederation on investigations that have triggered government action across the region. He is the author of Undocumented: Stories of Indian Migrants in the Arab Gulf (Penguin, 2021) and his debut novel The River of Grey Flowers (Speaking Tiger, 2026), drawn from his firsthand experience rescuing Indians trapped in cyber-fraud compounds in Southeast Asia. A Senior Investigator at Equidem Research, Rejimon is one of the most credentialed journalists working on migrant rights in Asia today. We go live today at 2 PM on Influencing Insid

Image edited by Dinesh Raj M   There's a peculiar irony at the heart of Indian television news: the metric designed to measure what audiences want has long been accused of distorting what audiences actually get. So what happens when that metric simply disappears? That's not a hypothetical. Since March 2026, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has directed BARC -- the Broadcast Audience Research Council -- to suspend the publication of Television Rating Points for news channels, not once but twice. The most recent extension, issued on March 31, keeps news TRPs dark for a further four weeks, citing "unwarranted sensationalism and speculative content" during the West Asia conflict. MoS L Murugan confirmed in the Lok Sabha that the suspension was first triggered during Operation Sindoor, after certain channels aired content with the potential to "trigger panic among viewers." The broadcasters, for their part, have apparently offered no objec