Culture

Mansions, promises, sinking towns: Paul Barry looks at how one man fooled the world

The Age

16 Sept 2026 15:15 AEST Summary

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From the report

The Big Steal by Paul Barry is published by Allen & Unwin on September 8.

Headline check

The one thing this headline claims is in the report.

Figures, names and quoted words in the headline, looked for in the report itself — not in the summary above. One claim in this headline could be checked, so this is a narrow pass and not a thorough one. How this is checked

This is a summary. The indicators are not. Every score on this page was measured over the full 938-word report, which is the only way the numbers mean anything.

Indicators

Niral Score 29.9 mundaneloaded

Highlighted in the text. Words that carry a fact and quoted words are not counted.

steel6industrial4companies3creditors3dream3enough3financial3kept3man3mills3astonishing2book2businesses2corporate2credit2desperate2dreams2entire2fantasy2fiscal2ghastly2government2green2house2insurance2items2left2myriad2outrageous2play2politicians2price2pulled2readers2reading2regulators2salvation2saved2simply2sinking2think2visionary2warns2workers2world2

Sentiment -1.1 hostilefavourable Sourcing 16 unattributednamed sources Mood 37.4 sorrowjoyful

5 read zero: political diction, generational, gender, jingoistic, religious

Political diction 0 left-codedright-coded Generational 0 harder on the oldharder on the young Gender 0 no gendered framingframing throughout Jingoistic 0 reports to a readerwrites from a camp Religious 0 not invokedovert

Measurements of how this article is written, not of whether it is correct. How each one is measured.

Measured on The Age’s report as filed, which is all we may publish of this one.

How this outlet filed it, and how we rewrote it

No other newsroom we read has filed on this event, so there is nothing to compare it with yet.

Also covered by The Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, WAtoday. We hold only their summary of it, not the report, so there is nothing of theirs to measure here.

Outlet	Niral Score
The Ageas they published this story	29.9

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The same event elsewhere

3 other outlets filed this story. The scoreboard above is what they did differently.

The Sydney Morning Herald Mansions, promises, sinking towns: Paul Barry looks at how one man fooled the world Niral 15.2 political 0 Brisbane Times Mansions, promises, sinking towns: Paul Barry looks at how one man fooled the world Niral 15.2 political 0 WAtoday Mansions, promises, sinking towns: Paul Barry looks at how one man fooled the world Niral 15.2 political 0