In today’s Media Briefs: shambles at The Age … Vic rock lobby defends diminishing returns … Facebook will pay gamers to watch video ads … Big change for MTV networks … and more …
The Age
Angry hacks demand Fairfax look elsewhere for savings
Torrents of anger continue to course through Fairfax newsrooms in Melbourne and Sydney after chief executive Greg Hywood told staff he would trigger forced redundancies if subeditors in the firing line refused to sack themselves.
Beecher: from a burning platform, Fairfax had to take the plunge
The new leadership at Fairfax Media will attract fierce criticism over the announcement today of a recalibration of its flagship newspapers by sacking all their sub-editors. But they had to do something.
Media briefs: Osama and the media … Easdown quits Hun … Mercury keeps its subs …
In today’s Media Briefs: Logies or Osama? … Who got him? … September 11 2011 … Google’s Osama Bingle and more ….
The Fairfax data trail that shows Schembri only ‘punk’d’ himself
Troubling new evidence has emerged in the scandal surrounding Age film critic Jim Schembri’s infamous Scream 4 spoiler, with secret Fairfax files contradicting the scribe’s official explanation for the snafu.
In defence of a spinner in the works
If the public don’t really care about spin, why are journalists so preoccupied by it? Brent Hooley, an author and former government media adviser, discusses.
Coming to grips with the trauma that is, in reality, news
I kept telling myself that I wasn’t the first journalist to experience trauma. And that this certainly wasn’t going to be the last time, writes Erdem Koc, who teaches journalism at La Trobe University.
Media briefs: SA pollie v The Addy … News on privacy
Paul Holloway, a Labor pollie in the South Australian parliament, had a bone to pick with local rag The Advertiser. Plus Murdoch’s new training course (sans phone hacking) and all sorts of tasty media treats.
Media briefs: The Oz’s time warp … Abbott and the papers
The Australian has offered a “clarification” for breathlessly reporting a speech from Rupert Murdoch — delivered some 12 months earlier. It was Mark Day who first wrote about it, with media editor Geoff Elliott demanding another journo to pen a similar story.
Tony Abbott in The Age and The Australian — an amusing contrast
Tony Abbott’s presence at yesterday’s Anti-Carbon Tax rally has generated very different portrayals in The Age and The Australian. So which outlet is biased? asks Margaret Simons.
Media briefs: Guardian v WikiLeaks … Nine’s nuclear map hoax …
The latest in the Guardian v WikiLeaks, the scary nuclear graph on Nine News is a hoax, Fairfax sued for one billion dollars and other media news.
Media briefs: Rupert’s proud to be green … The Oz goes back to the future …
The changes continue at the embattled Ten Network. James Packer has quit as a director immediately, the board has raided the Seven Network for its CEO. Plus, other media tidbits from around the globe.
Crikey Says: Crikey says: buzzwords won’t cut it
Just under six years ago an unconventional news website called The Huffington Post was launched in the US. Yesterday it was sold for US$315 million.
Age left half-Naked after Rule exit, and Sly could follow
Speculation has reached fever pitch that storied Age journalist John “Sly” Silvester will join his colleague Andrew Rule at News Limited, after Rule defected to the Herald Sun yesterday.
Hywood unbackable as new Fairfax CEO, with more cuts to come
Fairfax Media is bracing for sweeping changes to its senior executive ranks, with well-placed sources telling Crikey that acting chief executive Greg Hywood is now an unbackable favourite to be confirmed in the top job following the company’s board meeting next Friday.
New Age? Stylish Saturday edition in ‘biggest makeover in history’
Melbourne gets a new newspaper next month — or at least a re-branded one — with Fairfax spruiking a new-look Saturday edition of The Age in “the biggest makeover in the paper’s history”.
Media briefs: Advertiser loves itself … ‘vibrator’ slip … Nova news gaff … The Age goes farming …
The problem with putting your application on iTunes is you open yourself up to scrutiny. In fact, many of the comments on News Limited’s roll-out of iPad applications have been positive. Plus, other media news of the day.
How PR became the art of imitating the art of journalism
New evidence shows that arts journalism in Melbourne’s newspapers is saturated by PR content, writes Lucinda Strahan, lecturer in media and communication at RMIT University.
WikiLeaks tug of war: News Ltd v Fairfax
There’s nothing more demeaning for a journalist than a public accusation of getting your facts wrong, but that’s exactly what Fairfax’s Philip Dorling had to cop on Saturday courtesy of the front-page of the Weekend Australian.
Cafagna gig presents The Age with a Curly conundrum
The Age is bracing for a conflict-of-interest storm following the appointment of Josephine Cafagna — the wife of its veteran political editor Paul “Curly” Austin — as Ted Baillieu’s chief spin doctor.
The printing is on the wall for The Age, former execs agree
Former senior Age executives have backed the release of a document calling for a radical restructure of the ailing Melbourne daily’s management team, following the launch of a public campaign to save the newspaper from oblivion.
When advertising overrides editorial
An absolute shocker by The Age this morning. Hopefully part of the latest ‘transformation plan’ at Fairfax includes remembering that news should always over-ride advertising, writes Dave Gaukroger.
Leigh Josey’s Morning Media Maulings
In today’s Media Maulings Shepparton News issue a front page FAIL, The NT News combines a lost dog and a cave of crocs, First Dog on the Week strolls into The Age’s sport section and more.
Fairfax faces the future by going deeply vertical
Fairfax staff are bracing for a wave of “efficiency” gains across The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald after the company’s long-awaited investor briefing this morning relayed the widely-expected news that at least $10 million would be hacked out of the mastheads through a new corporate restructure.
The Age’s so-called ALP revelations
Hold the front page! The Age has “revealed” that the ALP keep a private database of tens of thousands of Victorians! Pity we’ve actually known about it for years and the timing of the story - four days out from an election - is a little suss, writes William Bowe.
