… the former 612 ABC radio host has traded the spoken word for the written word, as the brains behind a new daily news email for Brisbane Times.
Launching on Monday, March 6, the new email – titled The Gateway – aims to summarise everything an informed Queenslander needs to know to embark upon their day.
Sounds somewhat Latika Bourke’s daily political post for the SMH - “Latika’s Double Shot”.
Day Four of Spencer’s ‘Gateway’ and I gotta say it’s quite good (despite the inherent liberal bias)… he obviously enjoys getting up with the sparrows and the great thing is his news is not just Fairfax sourced.
The Australian Financial Review Magazine editor Katrina Strickland has switched to Good Weekend magazine to become its editor, replacing Amelia Lester.
Fairfax this morning announced to the stock exchange that more journalist positions would go in order to achieve $30 million in annual savings. The announcement:
Fairfax Media Limited [ASX:FXJ] today commenced a process of consultation with its Australian Metro Publishing newsrooms on proposed changes which will complete the major structural editorial changes required to secure the futures of the metropolitan mastheads.
Fairfax Media’s Managing Director of Australian Metro Publishing, Chris Janz, said: “With the proposed changes to The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Times and WAToday newsrooms announced today, we will have completed the major structural editorial changes required to secure our metropolitan mastheads.
“The primary focus of Fairfax Media over recent years has been to lay the groundwork for the creation of a sustainable publishing model. We are now within reach of that goal.
“Including non-staff costs the proposal is expected to deliver approximately $30 million in annualised savings with the majority of these savings expected in the 2018 financial year.
“The changes announced today will prepare us for a stronger future, with a business focused on growth and innovation, and an unwavering commitment to quality, independent journalism.
“Our publications will be genuine digital businesses with the capabilities and cost base to best operate in the current media environment. We will be introducing an innovative mix of new products to deliver our audience focused, quality journalism and maximise our revenue opportunities. We will continue to print for many years, so long as our newspapers have an audience and advertisers.”
And the changes are what exactly?
Mark Day wrote in his weekly column in The Australian today, accusing Fairfax journalists of sticking to their old charter of editorial independence for far too long. He wrote:
(The journalists) say they “report the facts fairly and accurately without fear or favour” but refuse to admit they do so with an obvious ideological leaning to the left. This cultural leaning, as strong at Fairfax as it is at the ABC, might appeal to the latte set of South Yarra or Paddington, but it does not appeal to many large advertisers.
I do notice large advertisers like the major banks, Myer, Wesfarmers, Woolworths and Harvey Norman rarely (or don’t at all) advertise in The Age, SMH and their Sunday editions, but is it really related to the reporting? Does Day have a point?
No
Oh god, when will this tired stereotype end?
Fairfax being lectured on political leanings by The Australian?
Or maybe the columnist can write something substantiated, but I guess that’s impossible when one’s personal bias is allowed to filter through.
Not at all, but the problems at Fairfax merely reflect that with print journalism as a whole. If anything, they’ve been slower to adapt to newer technologies than News Corp has and, moreover, has a less diverse portfolio to offset the losses of their print divisions.
However, if Day’s assertion is correct, then we’d be able to conclude that the “centrist” (read: right-wing) press is insanely popular due it’s broader appeal. And yet both the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age - two city papers - has a higher circulation than News’ national masthead - go figure.
Well if one was to humor Day’s argument that the SMH & Age’s lack of appeal is down to their left-wing bias, one must turn to the most right-wing paper in the country. TL;DR: The issue isn’t ideology - it’s print as a whole.
Both papers are trumped by News Corp’s respective mastheads (Daily Telegraph & Herald Sun), but when your weekday papers are either stagnating or increasingly marginally year-on-year, I wouldn’t call it sustainable for either. Weekend papers, for both Fairfax and News Corp, are on the increase - I would expect Fairfax to move first to a Monday-Friday digital-only, Saturday-Sunday print model within the next few years. They’ll run out of subeditors to sack by then.
There is a lot of shit at Fairfax, but they’ve also done great work lately. Their work on Dominos underlying staff, for example.
It is a great shame media diversity is diminishing. Some may chalk it up as a “win” for their narrow ideological viewpoint, but a media landscape dominated more and more by Murdoch benefits no one.
It’s worth noting that SMH and The Age do much better online than in print. In such a world I suspect the clickbait is justified to get readers to look at other content at all.
Fairfax have today announced they’re cutting another 125 editorial positions across the country, approximately one quarter of its journalism staff, in an effort to cut $30 million in costs
You’ll be able to cue the predictable outrage that Fairfax doesn’t care for its journos or news, as well as the usual ramblings from the right wing nutters about their left-of-centre editorial position causing all this, but the fact is that news media worldwide is suffering a rapid decline and we’re all going to be worse off if big news companies like Fairfax end up failing. It’s yet another blow to journalism in this country
Indeed very sad news. It’s weird because Fairfax pull above their weight in the online sphere (especially the SMH), yet the company is just continuing to bleed.
There’s a couple of things I don’t particularly like about Fairfax’s current trajectory. Whenever I visit the SMH or Brisbane Times homepages, there’s almost nothing relevant or newsworthy as the top story. The layout is also strange, in that they push political stories waaaayy down the page, despite those stories often being the most clicked. And for some reason they’ve decided to go ahead with a lot more clickbait of late, which I assume is a desperate bid for ad revenue.
I quite like Fairfax’s reporting on occasion, but I never go out of my way to visit their websites. The ABC, The Guardian and even The New Daily do breaking news much better and I only really pay attention to their stories when they’re shared to me on Facebook.
Fairfax also announced it would reduce its casual workforce, scale back its use of freelancers and review all third-party deals. So it means its papers will rely more and more reports from AAP (which Fairfax part owns).
More bad news for the company with the NZ Commerce Commission today rejecting the proposed merger between NZME and Fairfax’s New Zealand assets.
Age staff to strike.
It also means Fairfax reporters will not cover Sunday’s A-League grand final and next Tuesday’s Federal Budget. First time The Age and SMH reporters are not going to report the Budget since Federation. Very sad situation.
The Canberra Times journalists are not mentioned as going on strike. If they are still working I assume they wouldn’t file reports that would be seen as breaking the strike, and Fairfax will use AAP reports and management writing stories.