The Australian names Darren Davidson as media editor replacing Sharri Markson
Davidson
Business media writer Darren Davidson has been appointed media editor of The Australian replacing Sharri Markson who moves to a senior writing role with the News Corp newspaper.
Markson, a former editor of Cleo, took on the role just under two years ago while Davidson, a former editor of AdNews, has been with the paper for four years.
He becomes the section’s seventh editor in seven years.
Markson
When Markson took the reins of the newspaper’s media section she vowed that the section would have “attitude” and noted: “I enjoy a good media war”.
Markson’s reign was eventful, drawing headlines in rival publications for an “undercover investigation” into UTS journalism courses, and for an incident at last year’s Melbourne Cup with Fairfax publications claiming she had been asked to leave the Emirates marquee.
The incident became know as “marqueegate”, within the industry, with Markson insisting that nothing had occurred and the airline later issuing a statement denying she was asked to leave.
Markson was also one of the catalysts in reporting events which led to Fairfax columnist Mike Carlton being suspended and ultimately quitting the publisher.
It came after he sent a series of tweets to people who had attacked him on Twitter for a column last July critical of Israel’s handling of the Gaza crisis.
The changing of the guard comes just weeks after the hiring of The Australian Financial Review’s Jake Mitchell, son of editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell, as media writer with the newspaper.
Nic Christensen
One of the best in the emerging field of native corporate communications
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Jake Mitchell has done well for himself. He’s writing about the media despite only being in it for five minutes.
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Does the promotion come with an iPad included?
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Good appointment
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I hope he is good, the role needs someone intelligent.
[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
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I used to love reading The Media section when it first came out, but over the past years and especially under the reign of Sharri Markson it’s gone from a must-read to a should-skim due to the endless anti-Fairfax anti-ABC diatribes while also shamelessly trumpeting all things NewsCorp. Once you skip over all of those, there’s honestly not much left that’s worth the read. I hope that Darren Davidson changes tack and gets Media back to being a section about the market and the industry, with actual insight and considered interviews, instead of a nationally-distributed NewsCorp rah-rah sheet.
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I dropped the The Australian Media section like a hot brick some time back when Amanda Meade left. She’s now at The Guardian and doing a great job. Sharri Markson turned the column into a farce for the reasons outlined so well by Jack. BTW, thanks Mumbrella for the excellent work covering the spectrum of media, PR and marketing as well!
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I really like this column – usually a good read.
Agree with Jack – I am not a fan of the anti-Fairfax in this column. Diversity is good in the press !
I reckon this would not be an easy job collating all that info on deadline and under pressure.
Lay off “Shazz”, she did OK.
Can you do a better job Jack, week by week?
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Congrats Big D
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Welcome to the gig, Darren. Let’s hope this marks an end to self-serving, attention-seeking, often ill-informed beat-ups and a change back to more of the excellent coverage that Meade specialised in and continues to serve up at the Guardian.
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Jesus, what the fuck is The Australian thinking replacing a woman with a man?
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He’s certainly earned it, doing Lachlan’s dirty work on the NRL broadcast rights.
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As John said a well deserved promotion after hounding NRL boss David Smith out of a job
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congrats Darren – great gig.
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