Graeme Watson
Graeme Watson links pop music, queer culture and community life, using anniversaries, tours and books as entry points into wider LGBTQIA+ stories. He is co-editor and co-owner of OUTinPerth, works in the university sector and is a broadcaster at RTRFM 92.1. His music and culture coverage sits in the middle of this broader brief, tying songs, performers and fandom to legislation, archives and everyday queer experience.
Pop music history and queer culture
Watson treats popular music as part of queer cultural history rather than entertainment in isolation. In pieces such as his retrospective on Madonna’s album ‘True Blue’, he marks milestones and looks back at the impact of major releases decades on, framing chart pop as part of a longer story of identity and fandom. His broadcast background shapes this angle: he approaches music as something that is heard and lived, not just collected as trivia, and he connects artists to the communities that have carried them.
Across OUTinPerth he often positions music alongside other cultural touchpoints, so a pop story rarely stands alone. When he covers touring performers and comedians, such as his preview of Kiwi comedian Chris Parker’s two shows at The Rechabite, the focus is on what their work offers to local queer audiences and how the shows fit into the broader arts calendar. This gives music and performance stories a clear community context.
LGBTQIA+ community news and policy
Much of Watson’s reporting sits at the intersection of culture and policy, tracking how law and regulation shape queer lives. He covers national legal developments, including a story on moves to change the Sex Discrimination Act being shut down, treating legislation as headline news that directly affects his readership. He reports on regulatory action in health, such as restrictions placed on Dr Andrew Amos’s ability to comment on gender medicine on social media, making complex professional rulings legible to a general audience.
He also follows institutional work on consent and sex education, as in his piece on the Australian Human Rights Commission’s final call for young people to help shape consent and sex education in Australia. These articles tend to foreground the official body and the practical consequences of its decisions, while keeping the focus on LGBTQIA+ communities who will live with the outcomes. For story pitches on music or culture, this pattern matters: he often looks for a line into policy, representation or rights rather than pure promotional angles.
Books, storytelling and performance
Watson devotes significant space to queer storytelling in print and on stage. He writes a regular Bibliophile column, such as his review of ‘Heartstopper 6’, where he describes how the final volume brings the story of Nick and Charlie to its conclusion and explores what the ending means for readers who have followed the series over time. His coverage of the Queer Book Club, including a piece urging readers to pick up ‘Lie with Me’ ahead of the July meeting, shows him treating reading as a social practice and highlighting spaces where queer literature is shared and discussed.
Beyond books, he previews comedy and spoken-word events, including his coverage of satirist David Sedaris’s 2027 tour. Performance stories tend to be practical and time-bound, specifying dates and venues while sketching the tone of the show. Taken together, these pieces show that he treats artists as storytellers and situates music and performance within a wider ecosystem of queer narratives, book clubs and live events.
Queer archives, festivals and history
Watson’s reporting often returns to the importance of archives, festivals and organised pride events. He covers structural changes to major queer festivals, such as his piece on the new approach for the Albany Pride Festival in 2027, where organisers shift from a month-long program to a focused Labour Day long weekend event. He reports on bids and celebrations linked to the Gay Games, including community rallies in support of a bid and the invitation to attend LGBTQIA+ celebrations at venues like Connections.
His coverage of WestPride Archives, including the agreement for the archives to exhibit Gay Games history at a 2030 event and a long-term partnership with a university, underscores a sustained interest in how queer history is preserved and shared. These articles keep heritage and memory in the foreground, showing that Watson is attentive to the institutions that hold queer stories and the events that bring those stories into public view. Music and culture pieces sit alongside this work, often echoing the same concern with continuity and visibility.
Role at OUTinPerth and cross-platform work
Watson is co-editor of OUTinPerth and one of the outlet’s owners, giving him a dual role as editorial leader and publisher. He works in the university sector and has a parallel career in broadcasting at RTRFM 92.1, which informs his comfort moving between written stories, live discussion and event coverage. He appears on radio to talk about news and politics, reinforcing his profile as someone who connects cultural coverage with current affairs.
Across the masthead his byline spans news, community, history and local categories, from policy-heavy stories to festival previews and book columns. This breadth means that when he writes about music, he often brings in angles from education, law, archives or live performance, making his coverage distinct from a dedicated music-only reporter. His work is best understood as queer public-interest journalism with a strong cultural spine.
4 more music journalists.
Abby Webster
Abby Webster zeroes in on the storytelling side of contemporary pop, writing for Billboard about how songs build worlds around K-pop groups, fictional pop stars and ambitious soundtracks. She covers K-pop projects through close, song-by-song features, like her track-by-track piece with SEVENTEEN’s Vernon and The 8 on their EP ‘V8,’ and fan-centered lists such as “7 Best Moments from BTS’ Long-Awaited Return.” She treats soundtracks and fictional acts with the same rigor, mapping the inspirations behind “The Vampire Lestat” soundtrack and profiling in-universe groups like HUNTR/X and Saja Boys as if they were chart acts. Through Chart Beat stories on projects like “KPop Demon Hunters,” she connects these releases to industry strategy, global fandom, and the business systems that turn pop narratives into durable IP.
Alex Suskind
Alex Suskind is a freelance writer and editor who covers music with concise news stories and curated release lists. He focuses on new songs, album roundups, and archival access, from Carly Rae Jepsen’s “On Wires” to Neil Young opening his full catalog to residents of Greenland. His reporting stays close to the release cycle and foregrounds the core hook of each story. He has written for Pitchfork and has freelance work in Vulture, The Guardian, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Atlantic. He also covers broader arts and culture, but his music beat is built around what is newly out now or newly available.
Ali Shutler
Ali Shutler links chart pop, alternative music and fan culture with the ways songs move through festivals, streaming platforms and games. He is a freelance culture journalist specialising in music, writing news and features for NME and other music and culture titles. He covers breakout chart acts, legacy artists whose catalogues are resurfacing, and how audiences rediscover songs via TikTok, streaming or in‑game soundtracks. His reporting on streaming-era pop and live festival moments tracks virality, catalog access and fan behaviour as part of the story of a track. He also examines music, gaming and visual art crossovers, treating game soundtracks and artist-led campaigns as part of a wider cultural map. Alongside this, he profiles emerging chart artists for outlets including The Telegraph, Vice, The Independent, Dork and Upset, focusing on early-career trajectories and fan culture.
Annette Sharp
Annette Sharp is a veteran gossip and entertainment columnist known for direct, opinion-led coverage of celebrity power struggles and reputational crises across television and the music industry. She now writes high-profile columns for the masthead, after a decade on a well-read gossip column and a move to News Corp in 2008. Her real beat is the friction between public image and behind-the-scenes behaviour on flagship TV programs, including breakfast shows, reality formats and other long-running franchises. She focuses on who drives conflicts, who is exposed and who benefits, using ratings history, production decisions and industry mechanics as context. Sharp covers on-air personalities, executives, advisers and musicians, treating television and music as workplaces with competing egos, contracts and alliances, and blending reporting, media commentary and critique in a narrative column format.