Daily Tele opinion editor Hildebrand: We can’t even afford to pay our own columnists
Cost savings have left Sydney’s biggest newspaper the Daily Telegraph with a budget to pay for just one opinion article per fortnight, the title’s opinion editor Joe Hildebrand has revealed.
During a video hangout with Mumbrella to coincide with tonight’s launch of his new ABC2 TV series Shitsville, Hildebrand laid out just how tight budgets have become at News Corp.
Hildebrand currently edits the Saturday news features section of the Telegraph, the newspaper’s daily opinion pages, is the acting letters editor and writes a weekly column.
During the hangout, he was quizzed about one of Mumbrella’s most commented upon articles of last year, featuring an email row between Hildebrand and journalist Matt Smith. The pair fell out after Hildebrand took offence over what he saw as Smith’s poor response to offering him exposure by running an article.
In yesterday’s live video hangout, Hildebrand told Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes: “The piece wasn’t good enough to merit paying for it, but I’ve always made a point of giving young journos a run if I had space in the paper. There were countless other things I could have run that day.”
After expressing disappointment at not being paid, Smith had urged for his Twitter handle to be included in the article. Hildebrand said: “He got a bit snarky. And I thought ‘You little fucking self important brat, go fuck yourself’. He’s certainly not my boss, so if he tries to tell me what to do he can quite frankly blow me and the horse he rode in on.”
Hildebrand went on: “The debate is completely academic. If I told you the budget I have which I’ve perpetually blown by 200 or 300 per cent…
“I can’t even afford to commission a full article a week for the entire op-ed pages or the features section.
“We used to have Bill Woods who was a very good and very popular columnist who was a huge hit with readers and we could only afford to have him fortnightly. And we had Kellie Connolly the other week, she’s also very popular, very good. We had to slash what we paid them because we couldn’t afford him. I was only able to persuade the bean counters above me to keep them under that.”
Hildebrand said the coup of former politician Peter Costello moving from Fairfax Media to News Limited added to the pressure. He said: “Obviously we’re paying him. He left the (Sydney Morning) Herald. We’re managing to share the cost with (News Corp’s Melbourne paper) the Herald Sun – it’s the only way we can afford that.
“And as a result of that we’ve had to cut Bill Woods and use him as a pinch hitter. So we couldn’t even afford to keep our own columnists.”
Hildebrand was asked for his advice to journalists looking to break into the mainstream media.
He said: “Be smart. Know what you’re talking about. Learn how to write a good story. Learn how to write a news story. Learn how to put the important stuff up the top and the less important stuff down the bottom. Don’t sit around your lecture theatre having debates about journalistic ethics over wine and cheese, get out there in the field and do what you have to do to get the story. Roll your sleeves up. You will have to work for free, possibly for a long time. You will be horrendously exploited, you will be yelled at. Don’t expect anybody to say how great your piece is every time you file it because chances are it won’t be, and even if it is they probably won’t say it.”
He warned: “If you really want it there are a tiny amout of journalism jobs going and they are ever dwindling.
“If you want to be paid for it and want to be part of an organisation which is already getting smashed by the internet and smashed by competitors who can effectively afford to work for nothing… if you want to work for a place where we actually do serious stuff… you’re going to have to be better than the current lot were before you.
“You’re going to have to keep getting better and better because the jobs are going to get fewer and fewer.”
Hildebrand’s Shitsville airs on ABC2 tonight. He is also due to become a regular panelist on Ten’s new morning show.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
Linkedin
So all those columnists have to write for free so the Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun can afford to pay….Peter Costello?
User ID not verified.
The more serious problem arising from newspapers lack of money to pay journalists is the loss of serious investigative journalism of the kind necessary in a healthy democracy. The more politicians, bureaucrats and people in positions of power get used to the idea that no-one is going to ask them difficult-to-answer questions (if they are to answer honestly) the more they will realise what they can get away with unscrutinized. More than opinion writers and clever columnists we need investigative journalists of the calibre of Kate Mc Clymont.
User ID not verified.
Here’s a crazy idea: get opinion stuff written by people who will trade off their writing skills for contra space in a national online newspaper, rather than just journalists. There are a LOT of good business people looking for promotion for their businesses who are talented writers.
*cough*
Like me.
User ID not verified.
What I am reading into this is that the Newspaper paradigm is no longer working unless the journalists work for free? This, presumably, applies to anyone else in the supply chain?
User ID not verified.
Or just give the gig to trolls:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com......6562122914
Instant public service coke meme.
User ID not verified.
He has a track record this Hildebrand.
He never paid me once for articles I wrote when he was editor of that university rag, Farrago.
Typical.
😉
User ID not verified.
@ Simon … “There are a lot of good business people looking for promotion of their businesses ..” There’s your problem. It’s called advertorial and no one buys a newspaper or looks at a website to read what’s nothing more than smicked up advertising.
User ID not verified.
Well Rupert is facing a divorce and probably needs some extra cash…
User ID not verified.
As Johnathon Holmes advised on his last Media Watch this week, we should all identify an online site that invests in investigative journalism and subscribe to it. Otherwise investigative journalism will completely disappear, and that’s a scary prospect for our democracy.
User ID not verified.
Actually Zumabeach, I’ve been writing for Marketing Mag for a year now and other than a small side profile, haven’t promoted myself once. There’s no reason, with a decent editorial staff, why it should appear like advertorial.
User ID not verified.
Good riddance to traditional media I say. Would much rather read online independent media than the tripe served up by them these days…
User ID not verified.
Rawnet, be careful what you wish for. Kate Mc Clymont, who pursued Eddie Obeid for years, worked for ‘traditional media’. So does Glenn Greenwald – who combines online work with writing for The Guardian. It ides nit mater where nor how investigative journalism happens – as long as t does. I did not see Media Watch but the moment an online investigative site comes online I will sign up. I will happily pay someone, various people, to do the job that ‘traditional media’ is finding it more and more difficult to do – for economic and other reasons.
User ID not verified.
If the paper was not marketed for the benefit of the mad right and aimed at the entire population it would probably have a bigger circulation which would mean more advertisers which would mean profits instead of losses so there would be money to spend on better content which would mean a bigger circulation…
User ID not verified.
@Lindsay
“probably have a bigger circulation”
Has the biggest circulation in the country.
User ID not verified.
Interesting. At the same time Newscorp Australia and Fairfax are asking us to pay for their online content to ensure we continue to get “quality journalism”, a senior editor is admitting they don’t pay contributors to the op-ed pages. I guess that means that right now we’re getting what we pay for.
User ID not verified.
Ex-Reader, sorry I thought that belonged to the Herald Sun.
User ID not verified.
sack all those over dressed haters and liars that work for murdoch, doing his bidding and pretending to be relevant journo’s and commentators.
close the whole thing down.
none of his papers turn a profit so all the stooges are just on his dole role.
User ID not verified.