News Corp Australian chief quits amid review
Departure of company veteran seen as political decision before elections in September
News Corp's Australia chief, Kim Williams, resigned from the company as New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allan reviews its newspapers in the country amid pre-election clashes with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Clarke retired in 2007 as chairman of the Herald and Weekly Times, a News Corp unit that publishes the country's biggest-selling newspaper, Melbourne's Herald Sun.
Allan would be "providing extra editorial leadership" to News Corp's Australian papers for two to three months, according to an internal e-mail from group chief executive Robert Thomson.
Murdoch was seeking to "get rid of" Australia's government in a September 7 election, Rudd said this week after Sydney's best-selling Daily Telegraph urged readers to "kick this mob out" in a front-page editorial on Monday.
"It certainly appears to be a very political decision," said Angus Gluskie, the managing director of White Funds Management. "It certainly seems as though Murdoch wants a particular viewpoint expressed, and that's got a number of issues. It's right at the heart of the independence of the press."