Monica Attard and her executive producer Tim Palmer ran a program ''that … conducts its affairs along the lines of an insiders' club that pushes its ideological prejudices at taxpayers' expense''. My chief sin, in The Australian's eyes, was my persistence in questioning its blatantly distorted coverage of climate change science. As then Weekend Australian editor Nick Cater put it, ''Media Watch's flaw is that it is vulnerable to capture by its presenters' pet obsession.'' You'll notice that The Oz is keen on that word ''obsession''. And Paul Barry's, it claims, is News Corporation itself. Evidence: shortly before taking up his present job, Barry wrote ''an anti-News Corp book''. Now, it is true that Breaking News: Sex, Lies and the Murdoch Succession is not the sort of book any of Rupert Murdoch's employees would have written. However, to this reader, at least, it is a pungent but scrupulously fair examination of the Murdoch family's complex relationship with its patriarch and his extraordinary creation, News Corp. The fact that much of the book is taken up with a detailed account of the cover-up, and subsequent unravelling, of the phone-hacking affair in Britain shows only that Barry knows a good story when he sees one. Well, perhaps it's not surprising that News doesn't see it like that. But Monday morning's article had more ''evidence'' of Barry's ''obsession''. Barry, writes The Oz's media editor, Sharri Markson, has ''so far criticised News Corp's newspapers in 11 out of 19 segments in seven Media Watch episodes broadcast since he took the reins as host on February 3 this year''. Actually, Sharri, Paul Barry ''took the reins as host'' on July 8 last year. Have you done an ''obsession count'' of the 21 programs he fronted in 2013?

I've done a rough one. By my reckoning, around 14 out of 52 items focused on News Corp newspapers - including one about Rupert Murdoch himself, and a few about the Daily Telegraph's furious partisanship during the election. About par for the course, and fair enough, I would have thought, given News' dominance of mainstream media. Perhaps, inexplicably, Barry's News Corp ''obsession'' came upon him during the Christmas break. But not content with its own story count, The Oz ''commissioned media intelligence firm iSentia to do an independent analysis of Barry's Twitter feed''. Easy money for iSentia, given that it apparently examined only the 54 tweets that Barry published in the past month. It found that ''his tweets have been dominated by the UK hacking trial''. What a surprise. A man who has just written a book about one of the biggest media stories in the world is tweeting about it! It's silly stuff. But the fact is that ever since he took over as editor-in-chief at The Australian, Chris Mitchell has displayed a sensitivity to Media Watch's criticisms that has made him - almost - unique. Shock jocks bluster and grumble about the program; the ''current affairs'' shows, Today Tonight and A Current Affair, would (publicly at least) ignore it. Most News Corp Australia editors treat it with a genial contempt that only occasionally morphs into exasperation. Mostly they take the view that those who dish it out must expect to cop it.

Only Mitchell - a man much given to lecturing his rivals about how grown-up journalism should be done - embarks on regular and vitriolic campaigns against Media Watch hosts and EPs: ''news'' stories, feature pieces, editorials. Recently Mitchell has been joined in the anti-Media Watch bunker by Paul ''Boris'' Whittaker, formerly his second-in-command at The Australian, and now editor of the Sydney Daily Telegraph. According to Whittaker, Barry arrived at Media Watch with ''a proven history of irrational hostility towards (the Telegraph) and its parent company''. Perhaps he's forgotten that among the many news outlets that Paul Barry has worked for in a long and distinguished career is News Corp's The Sunday Telegraph. Well, everyone can make up their own mind about Paul Barry's presentation of Media Watch: he is big enough and ugly enough to look after himself. But for what it's worth, here's a thought from someone who has sat where he is sitting. Media Watch hosts know perfectly well that sooner or later The Oz will have a go. Then they're a bit like Ulysses, who had to steer his ship between the monster, Scylla, and the whirlpool, Charybdis.

They mustn't allow themselves to be bullied by the monster, so that almost unconsciously they begin to avoid taking The Australian (or, for that matter, The Telegraph) to task when they should. But nor must they let themselves get swept into the whirlpool of the feud itself, and begin to think that their viewers - few of whom actually read The Australian - are much interested in what it has to say about Media Watch, let alone in their own brilliant ripostes. Knowing Paul Barry - and I should declare he is not just my successor, but my friend - I've no doubt he will evade Scylla. But, Paul, watch out for Charybdis. Jonathan Holmes is an Age columnist and a former presenter of the ABC's Media Watch program.