FAIRFAX. THE LONG GOODBYE
*LATEST NEWS
Today the world’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart rachets up the pressure on Fairfax Media.
Her company HPPL (Hancock Prospecting) styles her as a ‘White Knight’ engaged in an heroic a bid to save the ailing media company from oblivion.
Others see her more as an Avenging Queen with a large and dangerous axe to grind on the topic of climate change.
In a statement sent to the ABC, HPPL said: ”She remains concerned by the lack of understanding in the media on this issue.
”To lessen the fear the media have caused over these issues, Mrs Rinehart suggests that the media should also permit to be published that climate change has been occurring naturally since the Earth began, not just the views of the climate extremists.”
The statement singled out climate sceptics Ian Plimer, a geologist, and Andrew Bolt, a News Ltd commentator for special praise.
”Mrs Rinehart admires people like Ian Plimer who have independently chosen on their own accord to stand up against this tidal wave, which has caused fear, and despite substantial attacks by some of the media and extremists for so doing.”
Mrs Rinehart, now as Fairfax Media’s largest shareholder, owns 19 per cent of the company, wants two seats on the board and the right to have a say in the editorial direction of the company’s masthead newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Today she has threatened that unless she gets what she wants, she is prepared to sell her shares and consider repurchasing them at another time. ie: She is not going away.
This, on top of the resignations yesterday of The Age editor Paul Ramadge, his counterpart and publisher at The Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Fray, and Sydney Morning Herald editor Amanda Wilson.
Today we re-visit the events of last week when Fairfax slashed 1,900 jobs in its bid to restructure, as told by Alan Kennedy…
I know where I was when I heard President Kennedy was dead.
I know where I was the day John Lennon died. And I will remember how I heard yesterday that my beloved Fairfax, a company where I worked for 19 years after a lifetime of wanting to, was put on life support.
Around its bed are not the grieving relatives. We have either been pushed out the door or are about to be. In our place are the spivs and urgers who have brought about the company’s demise. While they look anxiously at the ventilator, they fight over the will, hacking off bits and pieces before they, too, head for the exits, declaring they have done all they could to save the patient.
They will leave behind a carcass, unloved and unwanted.
Don’t be fooled by the mouth boogie. Yesterday’s announcement that Fairfax was to slash 1900 jobs over three years and close its printing presses was a knife to the heart of great journalism in this country.
The current management geniuses at Fairfax will say it differently, but we know, don’t we?
Every journalist job that goes is another layer of quality peeled away. A Fairfax behind paywalls will be exposed as plainly as the Wizard of Oz was when Toto ran behind the curtain and showed he was just a pathetic old man. Dorothy and Toto got back home, but lovers of good journalism and the role a rambunctious free press plays know we aren’t in Kansas and we don’t have our red shoes any more. They were chucked away three staff cleanouts ago.
At the bedside, occasionally we see flashes of the ghosts of the past.
Old management who grew fat on the body while it still had some flesh on its bones, while never showing they had any clue or even curiosity about saving Fairfax.
Is that Fred Hilmer with Mark Scott? I remember the night Hilmer left with a $4 million bonus in his kick. I remember because we all feasted on high-quality sushi and sashimi that was going cheap in the canteen. It was to have been part of the food served at a lavish, bang-up beano down on the executive floor, but this was called off after some of us let it be known we might turn up to give Freddo our own special farewell. What amused us as we ate our sushi was that two minutes after we’d made our threat, we promptly forgot about it, but management didn’t.
So Fred was sent on his way with his money but no brass band, streamers or sushi.
Hilmer is now running one of Australia’s major universities, while Mark Scott is in charge of the ABC. To me, the ABC sounds just like the radio arm of News Ltd. But maybe that’s just me.
At the time of the management idiocy, the Fairfax board was remarkable for not having any media people on it. Fred described us as “content providers” for advertising platform. When he visited the news floor and was asked what this meant, he took umbrage and left, never to return.
Fred and his mob also decided that maybe the names The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age were “old media”, and so more than a century and a half of hard-won brand identity was to be pissed up against the wall. It was like Coca-Cola deciding that the name was a bit old school and they were going to relaunch as The Black Drink.
The media-blind board just copped the message that all journalists were bastards and the culture must change, and they embarked on a strategy summed up best as “the floggings will continue until morale improves”.
As journalists and members of the house committee, we would fly the truce flag and say let’s talk about the future directions of the company.
Let’s look at ways of integrating the newspaper and internet in a 24-hour news cycle, with one feeding off the other: internet during the day, breaking news and promising extensive coverage in the newspaper the next day.
Instead, a digital cancer called F2 was put inside the company and ran like a government in exile. Its main aim appeared to be to have as little contact with the editorial part of the paper as possible. Rather than create a merging of print and digital, the dream seemed to be a non-union workforce. But we recruited them as fast as they came on board.
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22 Responses to this article
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Erica June 19, 2012
So sad, so true. Businesses that don’t adapt their business plans to changing conditions will fail (I’m looking at you here Gerry Harvey). The only constant in life is change.
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Alicia June 19, 2012
Thanks for the beautiful obituary on the paper I love too.
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John June 19, 2012
Quote:
“To me, the ABC sounds just like the radio arm of News Ltd. But maybe that’s just me.”It’s not just you by any means!
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denese June 19, 2012
http://thefailedestate.blogspot.com.au/
I Read above this morning and foun d it very imformative.
For myself i havent bought a newspaper for a long time.
I prefer on line sites
That are privately owned -
denese June 19, 2012
I agree e abc stopoed watching 7.30 since kerry left
They also seem to have lost in terest in the older generation,
Good drama, good english productions
There is litle on tv, the nbn of course will give us so many options
Thats why we dont want an abbott gov.He says he will take it away,
What a backwater we would become
We now have such low i terest rates and are number one in tbe develped world -
denese June 19, 2012
I agree e abc stopoed watching 7.30 since kerry left
They also seem to have lost in terest in the older generation,
Good drama, good english productions
………..
There is litle on tv, the nbn of course will give us so many options
Thats why we dont want an abbott gov.He says he will take it away,
What a backwater we would become
We now have such low i terest rates and are number one in tbe develped world -
Jane June 19, 2012
I agree with MidnightBlue & Denese. I subscribe to Crikey and actually haven’t bought or read the Herald pretty much since the last federal election. The mainstream media are so compliant in parroting the spin vomited out by politicians and provide virtually next to nothing by way of analysis.
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Norelle June 19, 2012
thank you Alan – we can partly blame our addiction to smart phones etc but soon everyone will realise that being our own chiefs-of-staff is taking up so much time! A newspaper did all that for us from the global issues to what’s going on around the corner in Sydney. I think newspapers, however they are delivered, will have another moment in the sun. Just like Australia Post was given a new chance with internet shopping, the SMH might be a clearing house for the good ideas we have no time to sort through and edit ourselves.
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Heather frost June 19, 2012
It is indeed sad for us all that so many well intentioned fellow journalists who are connected with a purpose.
Self reliant and individually motivated and now collectively
redundant and disposable. I have empathy but I chose the easy way which is inescapable. Choose a way that is compatable and progressive,inducive to including the next generation of journalist who will not be dependent upon
anyone. IMy answere to climate change is: If you have been shitting in your own backyard for two hundred years nd are surprised to find a cespool, then you are barking up the wrong tree. This could also apply to you?! -
Benison O'Reilly June 19, 2012
What about my poor mum and dad who still get the Herald delivered every day and live for the cryptic crossword?
I stopped my weekday subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald a couple of years ago, but love to hear the thump of the Saturday edition on my doorstep. I wallow in it over the two days, especially News Review and Spectrum, the Arts section.
I worry so much about journalistic independence – not the least because of the odious Mrs Rinehart’s manoeuvrings – and despite the naysayers, think there are still some great writers in the Fairfax stable. Loved Peter Hartcher’s piece in last Saturday’s edition, in particular.
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Chris June 20, 2012
RIP
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Kate Southam June 20, 2012
Wonderful Alan. I worked at SMH in the mid-90s and remember you fighting the good fight when there was a round of redundancies. I also remember the way journos were treated when Conrad Black owned the paper. I became a journo in the 80s and always marveled at how the employers relied on us to be persistent and able to stare down anyone dishing spin our way but then punished us for being the same when they were the ones dishing the spin. Loved your comment about the creative people – they were my favourite people – so passionate.
Let’s hope there will be more entrepreneurial ventures such as The Hoopla where good writers and thinkers can at least have a voice. -
Paula June 20, 2012
A lovely epitaph but with a considerable blind spot.
The content (and the journalists who produce it) DID fail Fairfax. News reports full of he said/she said, re-purposed press releases and opinion masquerading as analysis drove readers away.
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Loretta Bolton June 20, 2012
I have been a proud Fairfax employee since 1992, on the commercial side. I resent the suggestion that we have done nothing to evolve our classified products with the emergence on online, haven’t you heard of mycareer, drive and domain.com.au?!? The SMH and Age are changing, not disappearing. Long live Fairfax Media! I’ll keep my head down and bum up, as I have for 20 years, hoping that my contributions to the BUSINESS (which is what this is), past, present and future, continue to be valued, recognised and required!!!
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speccygirl June 20, 2012
what about the Guardian in the UK? – I think they have a great model of successful paper and website partnership! http://www.guardian.co.uk/ Fairfax would be well advised to chat with them about how they could make future models work…
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hand grenade June 20, 2012
“the dream was a non-unionised workforce. But we’ve recruited em as quickly as they came on board.”
How’s that worked out for you??? -
Mez June 20, 2012
I read what reflects my political opinion. When the SMH insisted on supporting Rudd and then Gillard and regurgitating their spin with lazy journalism, I stopped buying. Nothing to do with the Internet, everything to do with content.
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jane June 20, 2012
Sadly the above comments about opinion pieces and ‘short-cut’ journalism are true, but caused by earlier cuts, not laziness. That combined with a reactive approach to change has sealed Fairfax’s fate and decimated the valueof my FFX shares, damn them!!! Buggered if I’m keeping my Age subscription going if it goes tabloid in style as well as size, which I fear would be Gina’s preference. Long live Hoopla!
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thaddeus July 17, 2012
actually, the above comments about opinion pieces are totally predictable. people forget opinion pieces are excatly that – opinion. and inevitably the right-wing loonies get bent out of shape by any left-leaning commentary. what they miss though is the smh has the courage of its convictions to publish both points of view. for every marr there is a sheehan. and then there is the stream of liberal party stooges like costello and henderson (and let’s not forget miranda devine was starring in the smh for quite a few years). so everytime i read a comment such as mez’s, one has to laugh. and wonder if the likes of this lot have ever heard of the australian? the fact is the smh is a fine publication which ably reflects both the times and the populace. as a former 30-year employee, it saddens me to see the demise of the print edition – and i don’t believe for a second hywood et al will keep the presses running. i know him too well. but i am encouraged to be able to read good pieces online in the national times section, among others. i am proud to say there are new reporters there now who show incredible promise. and good luck to them all.
