Chaser hires political blogger

A political blogger with a reputation for his sharp opinions has been hired as a researcher by The Chaser team, and he owes much of it to Twitter.

Greg Jericho, who writes Grog’s Gamut, will work on production of ABC’s new program The Hamster Wheel. The news analysis show will examine the politics, media and bureaucratic spin doctors.

Jericho tells The Australian the job came about via his Twitter feed.

“I’ve been conversing with Chas Licciardello, just chatting about media and everything, for over a year now,” he says. “When they came up with the idea for this show he asked if I was interested and I decided to take the plunge.”

Jericho used to work in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in the office for the arts and blogged anonymously until his identity was controversially revealed by The Australian. On his blog he notes, “I’m a guy interested in sport, literature and politics. I have in turn wanted to be captain of the Australian cricket team, Olympic gold medalist, PM and Booker prize winner.  Now I’ll just settle for blogger. Was a public servant, now am just doing a bit of this and that.”

But more recently he has been a contributor to ABC opinion website The Drum and appearances on its ABC News 24 programme, as well as beginning a new book.

“Grogs is probably the most educated researcher in the history of The Chaser,” says executive producer Julian Morrow.