Chris Mitchell’s memoir of his life as a News Ltd journalist, then as editor, first of Brisbane’s Courier Mail and then as editor in chief of the Australian from 2002-2015, is justifiably named. Yet it might better have been called Making Waves, for the author has done precisely that. Unfortunately, for a book that should be on the required reading lists of every journalism and political science curriculum in the country, the waves which roll in begin as rippling gossip about embarrassing encounters with five former Australian Prime Ministers: from John Howard to Tony Abbott.