The SMH’s readers (are wrong) editor
We are now about five months into the reign of Australia’s first readers’ editor. And I don’t think it is working.
It struck me at the time of Judy Prisk’s appointment to the Sydney Morning Herald that the fact that her boss was editor-in-chief Peter Fray was not going to be ideal if she was going to be the independent voice of the reader.
The model in other markets – and the example I know best is the readers’ editor for The Guardian in the UK – is to give the role full independence rather than reporting to the person who effectively it’s their job to criticise.
I’ve been watching Prisk’s Readers’ Editor column with interest.
most people who comment online are schmucks, including me
Me too.
Why do I keep reading that stuff?
Sounds like a missed opportunity for the SMH.
But honesty and self reflection has never come easy to Australian media.
Of course it might be that the reason the Herald has glued on a fig leaf is that it’s editors and journalists do not give a fig (oops) for the reader. In fact it might be that they are so out of touch that the only way they can pretend to be engaged with the audience is to fake it?
Judy Prisk (and others) would no doubt demolish my obervation with convincing ease, but it would seem to this (now almost lapsed) reader that the most stark example of the SMH’s failure was the overwhelming view expressed by ballot of NSW citizens on the efficacy of the last Labor Government, which managed in its many years to suffer not a single serious rogering from the Herald on any material element of its shocking administration.
Nowadays Fairfax is a ship of fools, well reflected in its foppish web sites.
Almost everyone who comments online is a schmuck and I’m also including myself. I am slightly surprised that the paper even takes into account that other news sources exist. I would have thought a lot of people who still by the paper use it as their primary source of news. On the rare occasion I’ve picked it up I’ve found so few things that I haven’t already read elsewhere that I’ve regretted the purchase. If they put a full version of the Age online, even as a PDF I’d happily pay something for it to get the stuff I’m missing out on. I’d be interested in hearing journo’s opinions on how they work out what is “old news” 24 hours later and what isn’t
On the topic, when I sent a ‘release/story’ to smh.com.au suggesting they add balance to their coverage of the call for greater Coral Sea protection (from what? but that is another story . . .) and perhaps counter Valerie Taylor’s comments that there is a severe shortage of tuna and pelagaic fish in our seas with ACTUAL FACTS from the Tuna industry (the CEO to be precise), they referred me to OPINION page and told me to send my thoughts there.
Okaaaaay. Perhaps, as I sent back, their journalists could follow up and BALANCE the story with real figures from the Fisheries rather than just diatribe from Ms Taylor about endangered fish that would be better off in a marine park, rather than on our dinner tables. Talk about off course.
PRs should be banned by newspapers. As should reader editors. I am sick to desth of PR as news and of news media who live a life of spin. The types who run these companies are far removed from what readers know snd want and in my experience are accelerating the trends that accrue from digital media.
I will happily pay for reporters who ask questions of interest and who write the snswerd in a clear, balanced and intelligent way. I will not pay to read about a couple of PR hacks who want to pretend they care about a social issue ( such as gambling).
What about the rubbish smh website? The amount of rubbish celebrity stories and Internet memes they publish makes it look like th Telegraph!
I agree with Chris Sherlock’s comment; the SMH website is a shocker, deliberately tailored to emphasise celebs, crime, accidental deaths, and wacky stories off the net. Must be the only broadsheet newspaper in the world to have a tabloid website! It’s also poorly designed.
Come off it: you’ll actually find that the journos who still have jobs there actually do give a rat’s about the readers. But as FFX outsource more and more of their production, they’re hard pressed to produce the same paper with fewer numbers. You could argue that the subs gave even more of a shit about the content of the paper – except they’re now all dumped, and subbing is handled typewriter/monkeys style by Pagemasters, who have an even worse track-record than yer average blogger.
The website is separate to the paper, and designed to attract eyeballs with populist shit, to try and undercut the opposition’s more glitzy entries. Most staffers I know abhor it, particularly the fact that it was never subbed before being sent live. (And probably still isn’t.)
you pay peanuts is bang on. i just left the place after a fair while because – partly – i felt embarrassed telling people i worked there. back on topic: i do tend to agree with burrowes’ observations over judy prisk’s column. indeed, she is a bloody fine journalist and i’ll be forever indebted to her as the subs desk den mother. but i do suspect that there is probably a fair bit of meddling on the part of peter fray – and amanda wilson, for that matter – with the readers’ column. both love to micro-manage at a deckchair-on-the-titanic level.