The Australian newspaper has a right to defend itself, but not with one-sided 'news' stories and frothing editorials designed to frighten off its critics, writes Jonathan Holmes.

With a sigh, and apologies to readers who would like a merrier Christmas column, I find it is necessary once again to write about The Australian.

Not about its current campaign about left-wing bias at the ABC. There is nothing new in that, and I will leave it to the ABC's management to defend the organisation as and how it thinks fit.

Nor do I intend to deal with The Australian's espousal of the complaint by former chairman Maurice Newman about the ABC's reporting of climate change science. It's been known for years that Mr Newman and I do not see eye to eye on that. I have nothing to add.

But I think it's time that someone spoke up - again - about The Australian's habit of launching vitriolic personal attacks, which can sometimes last years, against anyone bold enough to criticise it.

The current target is Dr Margaret Simons, director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Simons has been critical of The Australian for some years. The bones of contention are complex, and I don't want to try readers' patience by rehearsing them all. Suffice to say that she has argued that The Australian has abused its powers by remorselessly attacking the former chief commissioner of Victoria Police, Simon Overland. She believes it did so because Overland objected publicly to a story The Australian published on the morning of August 4, 2009 - a story that was undoubtedly a scoop for its author, Cameron Stewart, but which in Overland's view jeopardised an anti-terrorist operation by being published some hours before the suspects were arrested in early morning raids.

The Australian argued at the time that it had been given the go-ahead by the Federal Police to publish the story in its last editions that morning, and that Overland's complaint was merely part of a feud between the two forces.

Relations between The Australian and Victoria's Office of Police Integrity soon became poisonous. Cameron Stewart has come under intense pressure to reveal his source - made especially difficult because, unknown to observers, the OPI had secured a "release" from Victoria Police detective Simon Artz. Stewart was advised by his lawyers and his union that he had no ethical or legal grounds for refusing to give evidence against Artz.

Meanwhile, the OPI had a report critical of The Australian suppressed by court order, and The Australian launched a series of apparently unrelated attacks against Overland and the OPI.

Simons has been one of the few journalists to cover these matters in detail. Yes, she has been critical of The Australian. But in my view her writing has been judicious, cautious and fair. Media Watch has raised similar concerns. We've covered the story several times, notably here and here.

Obscure this stuff may be, but it matters. There are more than mere journalistic egos at stake. The role of the media in the factional wars that have riven the Victoria Police has been crucial.

The Australian accuses Dr Simons (and Media Watch) of being "led by the nose" by Overland and the OPI, which it describes as a "rogue" agency. Dr Simons accuses The Australian of allowing itself to become a vehicle for the destruction of two chief commissioners by the Police Association and others within the force who are resistant to any attempt to clean up corruption.

Of course, The Australian has every right to argue its case robustly. But it has gone much further.

Time after time in the past two years it has attacked Dr Simons on grounds that strike me, and many other observers, as trivial, or unfair, or personal, or trumped-up. Often the attacks last for days, and include multiple stories and editorials.

The Australian likes to point out that Margaret Simons once wrote a book about compost.

It has alleged that she should not have got her present job - she is the Director of the University of Melbourne's Centre for Advanced Journalism - and that better candidates were overlooked.

Dr Simons figured largely in The Australian's savage attack on journalism educators and academics in the wake of the Finkelstein report. It claimed that she supported Mr Finkelstein's recommendation, the establishment of a statutory press regulator, when she did not.

It accused her of not declaring a conflict of interest, because she suggested a couple of names to the Finkelstein Inquiry (one of whom ended up doing research on contract for the inquiry) but did not make public that she had done so. She said she had no interest to declare, and I agree with her.

On Tuesday this week, despite Simons having written nothing new on the topic for months, The Australian returned to the attack with a 'news' story regurgitating its own highly partisan view of the Operation Neath saga, complete with the obligatory quotes from its editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell, who suggests that the University of Melbourne should think again about Dr Simons's appropriateness for her post.

On the same day, a long editorial again defended The Australian and attacked Margaret Simons.

Then on Wednesday, The Australian published a still more astonishing story.

It was headlined "Margaret Simons used judging role to discredit Operation Neath scoop (paywalled)". Google, and ye shall find. It purports to reveal the details of confidential discussions between the judges charged with short-listing three print-media news reports for a prestigious Walkley Award in 2009 - one of which was Cameron Stewart's original expose of terrorist plans to attack the Australian army base at Holsworthy in Sydney: the story whose publication started the whole feud between the Australian and Chief Commissioner Overland.

"Sources" have told The Australian's Nick Leys and John Ferguson, it seems, that Margaret Simons "argued with her fellow judges about the inclusion of Stewart's report in the finalists' list".

The Australian's report quite clearly implied that the doubts about putting Cameron Stewart's story on the Walkley shortlist - and especially about the actions of Stewart's editors in publishing the story when they did - came exclusively from Simons. Somehow she was able to bully or persuade her fellow judges to exclude it.

Now, the other two judges were David Penberthy, a former editor of Sydney's Daily Telegraph and now editor-in-chief of news.com.au, and Michael McKinnon, now with the Seven Network but for many years The Australian's Freedom of Information editor. Neither of them are exactly lightweights.

The Australian tells us that all three Walkley judges declined to comment on the judging process, because such discussions are, and should remain, confidential. But at least one of them must have talked to someone, at some stage, and a version of what they said must have reached The Australian's reporters. After all, no-one else was in the room for most of the time.

I haven't asked The Australian's reporters how they sourced their story, because they couldn't tell me. But if what we're actually dealing with is a form of Chinese whisper, where the account is second- or third-hand, it's quite possible that it is inaccurate. And yet the people who could set us right are gagged. They can't tell us what actually happened.

However, I have done my own research, and I am confident that in one respect at least the story is wrong: Margaret Simons was not alone in questioning whether Stewart's story should be shortlisted. And I too have "sources", in the plural.

So The Australian has used a distorted story about a confidential judging session to attack Margaret Simons' reputation.

Very little of all this, one would have thought, is of much interest to the vast majority of The Australian's readers. But the bottom line is this: the issues Dr Simons raises are legitimate. As a senior journalism academic, she has every right to raise them, and she has done so in a reasoned and reasonable way. The Australian believes it has acted properly and in the public interest throughout and has of course a similar right to say so.

But it should not be subjecting its critics to personal attack in one-sided 'news' stories on trivial matters, and frothing editorials. It is too easy to conclude that its real object is to frighten off that critic, and anyone else who dares raise their head above the parapet. It's a pattern of behaviour that needs to be called out. Dr Simons is not alone. Robert Manne, Julie Posetti, Simon Overland, and Wendy Bacon, to name a few, have all had the Oz treatment.

When one of the biggest bruisers in the playground tries to crush all criticism, not by argument, but by metaphorically bashing his critics in the face, there's only one word for it. It's bullying. And it's especially ugly when it comes from a newspaper that so loudly, and so often, claims the right to hold all others to account.

Merry Christmas.

Jonathan Holmes is the presenter of ABC TV's Media Watch. He tweets @jonaholmesMW. View his full profile here.