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.
So all those columnists have to write for free so the Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun can afford to pay….Peter Costello?
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.
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.
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?
Or just give the gig to trolls:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com......6562122914
Instant public service coke meme.
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.
😉
@ 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.
Well Rupert is facing a divorce and probably needs some extra cash…
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.
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.
Good riddance to traditional media I say. Would much rather read online independent media than the tripe served up by them these days…
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.
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…
@Lindsay
“probably have a bigger circulation”
Has the biggest circulation in the country.
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.
Ex-Reader, sorry I thought that belonged to the Herald Sun.
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.