Australia’s refugee problem has attracted global attention. This from the New York Times.
The Fairfax Fiasco II: Profits before public trust journalism
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Once you de-code the mangled spin, the real significance of yesterday’s announcement is that for the first time in its history, Fairfax has made a public declaration that profits come ahead of journalism. That its role as a major custodian of Australian quality editorial is secondary to its responsibility of maximising the financial outcome. At one level this is neither surprising nor wrong. Fairfax is a public company whose primary duty is to shareholders who have invested in the company with purely financial motives. Until yesterday, Fairfax had maintained the pretence that the two aspirations — profits and public trust journalism — could coexist. Until yesterday, Fairfax CEO David Kirk perpetuated that charade with his absurd rhetoric about Fairfax newspapers being different to others afflicted by the problems of the collapsing newspaper industry. Yesterday Fairfax came clean. If you’re looking for custodians of high-resourced fourth estate journalism in Australia, they effectively said, don’t look here. We’re businessmen and our overriding responsibility is to the pockets of our shareholders. Find someone else to deal with the societal responsibility stuff. At least that’s clear. Now the question is: can the quality, well-funded journalism that constitutes a pivotal plank of Australian democracy survive? Asking whether newspapers can survive is the wrong question — many of them can, but on a much lower cost base, with far fewer journalists covering politics, business, foreign capitals, courts and the investigative beats. Newspapers like The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can easily be produced with 150 journalists, not 300. They will be different newspapers, slighter and lighter, but they will carry words and pictures surrounded by advertising and they will dress up like quality newspapers. The time has come for governments, politicians and other public policy makers who genuinely believe in the place of quality journalism within the infrastructure of Australian democracy to understand that if they leave its future entirely to the marketplace, and to News Corporation, it will almost certainly be gone within a decade. What will be left will be celebrity/sport/human interest pap journalism and relatively small independent outfits (like Crikey) whose revenues will never allow them to replicate the resources that have made newspapers like the Herald and The Age indispensable partners in the ecosystem of democracy for more than 150 years. |
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9 Comments
Right on Pete. This guy is the greatest con artist in Oz publishing since the late, great hound of Jack Paccholi
and democracy in Australia takes another blow!
Another self-serving piece of crap dished up by eric beecher…the newspaper market in Australia for its relatively small population is remarkably robust and still healthy. There are issues with Fairfax, and no wants to see people lose their jobs, however they will still put a good product.
The bollocks he continues to trot out about the journalistic standards of the internet continues to amaze me, and his blind prejudice against News Limited just shows his bias. God help us if Eric is defending journalism in this country
“Once you de-code the mangled spin, the real significance of yesterday’s announcement is that for the first time in its history, Fairfax has made a public declaration that profits come ahead of journalism” says Beecher.
Maybe.
Or maybe there is a recognition that The Age is very poor and has lost or is well on its way to losing its reputation as a quality broadsheet if left-wing.
There is now not even an attempt of semblance of balance.
Profits are up significantly; standards are down almost beyond hope.
In the medium to long term that would conceivably be fatal.
In short it has, under Jaspan, become a rag with the pretense only of old-fashioned broadsheet quality.
Perhaps the owners were wise to dismiss Jaspan despite improved profitability.
I cannot agree more, good reporters, opinion makers and pamphlet writers tell it as they see how it is! What a pity that the noble art of putting out your own opinions, based on some sort of theoretic, be it rational or chaotic , has been now subjected to the heavy hand of “the market place”.
I recall, when reading about world shaking events, of the role that pamphlet writers and all those who managed to put their views in public. They played their part in bringing about social changes, all made available by the development of the printing press.
I had hoped the internet, via the blog, would have taken over! Not so, narcissium , unavailability because of poverty have taken over.
A lapsed dissenter
The writing was on the wall when Fairfax bought AW radio. Have you ever listened to that crap? Mitchell tries his best [ low as that bar is] but commercial radio is just that — -we are here to sell stuff , — -content is here merely to support that. Don’t ever kid yourself that any other motive exists.
Absolutely spot on Eric Beecher. The dumbing down of Fairfax by those who have no understanding of the newspaper culture is one of the saddest days in Australia’s publishing history..
No-one but the clinically naive really thought that Fairfax, Murdoch, Packer, etc really cared for anything but the bottom line.
Pete and Greg - You miss the point. The principle of the 4th Estate rests on the premise that journalists will provide a means of accountability by facilitating public scrutiny. If journalists are directed by their proprietors to tell us about fundamentally irrelevant things like Australian Idol contestants instead, we lose a pivotal mechanism for holding public officials (and corporate entities) to account. Quality, in-depth journalism (ie. not just repeating press releases) requires the dedication of substantial resources and editorial independence, often to produce stories that won’t boost circulation figures. It’s not hard to see why this would be an anathema to many commercial managers whose (justifiable) focus is on maximising return for investment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the champagne corks are popping in party HQ’s and boardrooms every time Fairfax announces that it has to cut spending on staff and resources.