Award-winning journalist or Liberal party player: will the real Peta Credlin please stand up?

Sky News host and newspaper columnist Peta Credlin has a swag of awards for journalism, a prime time nightly TV show and occupies significant real estate in the Murdoch press twice a week.

In addition to her various platforms, according to evidence heard in the federal court, Credlin has also been described as a “Liberal party mentor”, dispensing advice from the sidelines.

Ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming told the defamation trial she brought against the Victorian opposition leader, John Pesutto, that she has kept Credlin “in the loop, in general, at all times”.

Related: Peta Credlin nominated for Kennedy award despite Uluru statement report failing factcheck | Weekly Beast

Deeming alleges Pesutto falsely portrayed her as a Nazi sympathiser after she helped organise and spoke at the “Let Women Speak” rally in March 2023 which was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis. She was expelled from the party less than two months later after an initial suspension in the days after the rally.

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In more than 30 pages of texts, Credlin is seen advising Deeming how to wrangle the party and the media. This week, the court heard Credlin had also helped Pesutto, who confirmed under cross examination he reached out to her to help his former chief of staff in early 2023.

“On becoming leader, I was reaching out widely to as many in the party as I could … I recognised Mrs Credlin had served in senior roles,” he said.

In one column this week, published in The Australian, Credlin made no attempt to hide her influence, admitting she had helped the Victorian Liberals “develop a strong opposition leader’s office and a credible political program”.

A former chief of staff to Tony Abbott when he was prime minister and opposition leader, Credlin left a 16-year political career in 2016 to join the media.

Later that year, Credlin became a joint Walkley winner and, in 2017, TV Week Logie award-winner for her role in Sky News Australia’s 2016 federal election coverage.

In 2021, she won a Kennedy award for excellence in journalism and an in-house News Corp award. This year she was nominated for a Kennedy award for outstanding current affairs reporting but didn’t win.

But, according to her own account, she is still a Liberal player: “I’ve worked with various party intermediaries to encourage both Pesutto and Deeming to avoid going to court.”

During the Covid lockdown in Melbourne, Credlin famously donned a “Free Melbourne” T-shirt on Sky News.

Matthew Ricketson, a professor of communication at Deakin University, says Credlin’s dual role as political operator and media commentator is an index of just how far News Corp in general, and Sky News and Fox News in particular, “have strayed from conventional ideas of what journalism is”.

“As a journalist you’re absolutely not supposed to be doing that kind of thing, that is advising politicians and giving them political advice,” Ricketson says.

“At night she is basically giving the Liberals advice from the pulpit of her Sky News program: ‘Tony Abbott should do this, or Malcolm Turnbull should do that’.

“I reckon it shows how the media environment has shifted. That wouldn’t have been acceptable 20 years ago. It’s political activism, you know, some would call it propaganda.”

The trial has also unearthed text messages which show Credlin promising a “very friendly interview” to Deeming, as well as the opportunity to workshop questions.

Of the planned interview, Credlin says she wants to avoid damaging the Liberal party before the state election and she would have to “craft it carefully”.

Related: Sky News’ Peta Credlin helped draft Brittany Higgins’ 2021 media statement, court told

“I am not interested in damaging our chances in Aston as it would damage Dutton and he’s a mate of mine,” Credlin said in a March 2023 text message to Deeming.

“We will work [interview] up question by question. We need you to survive this. You will lead the party one day.”

Ricketson says there is a long history of people moving between journalism and politics, but Credlin is not so much an informed commentator as a political mouthpiece.

Age and Sydney Morning columnist Niki Savva never makes any secret of the fact that she used to work for John Howard and Peter Costello but she is an “equal opportunity critic”, Ricketson says.

“You have to judge journalists by the way they actually do their work and Savva will criticise the Coalition, the National party, the Greens and the Labor government,” he says.

Credlin did not respond to a request for comment.