Fairfax: Job cuts don’t mean the sky is falling
Fairfax group editorial director Garry Linnell responds to Andrea Carson’s criticism that recent journalism redundancies have decreased the level of scrutiny given to business reporting.
Oh dear. On the sports field athletes are taught to ignore the crowd. And so it should be in journalism. Normally the ill-informed ravings of an academic like Andrea Carson would disappear into the ether, just another small murmur from that overflowing grandstand filled with the media spectatorati.
But her article yesterday that the sky was again falling down – this time on investigative business journalism – deserves a response. Carson should be escorted from the stadium for absurdity and a lack of understanding of the modern game.
On the front pages of Fairfax newspapers, websites, tablets and mobile platforms today stand a series of articles exposing allegations of bribery and corruption involving a major Australian company. The investigation, which took more than six months of intensive work, raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the nation’s corporate regulator.
Journalism like this requires large investments in time, resources and cost. Carson suggests that Fairfax’s decision this week to restructure its business media division, with a resulting 25 redundancies as we become more efficient and avoid duplication, will bring about less scrutiny of the corporate sector.
Not only is such a suggestion a slur on the professionalism of a large body of journalists who consistently bring to light issues corporate Australia would prefer to keep hidden, Carson also fails to understand what is happening in the modern media world.
Fairfax has just created the largest and most audience-focused home for business journalism in the country. With the vast digital audience of Business Day in the metropolitan mastheads combining with the specialist and highly engaged readers of The Australian Financial Review, business journalism in Fairfax is actually stronger now than at any time before.
It’s probably hard to see this while standing in the Jurassic era trying to get a glimpse of this new era. We are not going to produce a vanilla, one-size-fits-all approach to business journalism, just as our various mastheads retain their own individual approach. The decisions our editors make are based on deep audience data, backed up by their experience and determination to protect their brands.
Carson also suggests editors across Australia are increasingly refraining from investigative business journalism for fear of upsetting prospective advertisers. This seriously exposes her naivety. Ask any editor from any reputable publication about the amount of advertising revenue their titles have had pulled in a year because they published something that offended one company or another.
Fairfax has a deep commitment to investigative journalism, whether it be in business, news or sport. The past 12 months tell the story, as do an unprecedented number of Walkley and Quill awards. Not to mention the odd Royal Commission being formed.
We’ll keep doing it. It’s what we do. It’s just a shame that in an era of vast transformation in the media industry, those who earn a taxpayer-funded living by commenting on it are still locked in a world from which the rest of us have long moved on.
Good response by Gary and he does make a fair point that Fairfax Business journalism is actually good (probably the best part of the whole operation). Cost cutting is just a fact of life in a evolving media business trying to steady the revenue as digital becomes a larger part of what they do
That photo still terrifies me though…..
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not so great for the people losing their jobs though.
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If the Fairfax publications are so good, why is everybody complaining about the declining quality? The obvious answer is they are not as good as they once were and if Garry Linnell can not see that, he is not looking at the product. It is a shame in an era of vast transformation in the media he seems to be besotted by ‘new’ and has lost sight of why people buy newspapers (printed or digital).
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that’s a lot of words to try and say ‘somehow we will produce the same quality of work with 25 fewer staff’. Unless those 25 people were sitting on facebook all day, that seems to defy reason, sense, and the laws of physics.
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Fairfax continues to win awards and grow all of their online audiences. They are clear winners in the digital journalism space. They don’t spread Rupert’s word. They have to change as a business, simple. Terrific piece Garry, more of them please.
But perhaps you could smile?
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On dear. I think Garry genuinely believes what he is saying. “Fairfax is actually stronger now than at any time before.” (Don’t mention the $2.6 billion loss last year, and a smaller loss this year). The comment is a slap in the face to the professionalism of the 25 people who are getting the heave-ho. It equals: we’re better without you.
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whoa….scary pic, i couldnt read the article.
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Fairfax are offering up voluntary redundancies. For many people this is a serious gift. They leave with a bundle of cash and start a new life.
I didn’t want to move into a ‘digital first’ world last year and after 18 years left with enough redundancy to pay off my mortgage and take my wife to Spain. I’m grateful to Fairfax for treating me with decency and providing me an option like that.
They need change their business, its as simple as bloody that. Why the ongoing hysterics?
I feel inspired when I see Fairfax continue to win awards for journalism. There is a breadth of young reporters coming through and for once people in editorial management who are getting some things right. Good on you Garry Linnell. I’ve watched you grow up through the business and you always fight for the craft of storytelling.
Shame on you Andrea Carson. Get your facts right. It’s the first thing any decent journalist does.
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The reality is businesses will advertise where their audience is. Being offended by journalism won’t stop them unless they think it’s bad PR (bigmouth radio gaffes are a case in point). If Fairfax can maintain its audience, it’ll maintain its advertisers because audience equals income – for both sides.
Is it sad for people to lose their jobs? Of course. But it’s equally inevitable. Industry after industry has risen and fallen since the era of industrialisation as people’s consumption habits change. Media is no exception.
We’re now experiencing a huge boom in the communictions field – particularly public relations. That means more people than ever before are producing content and much of the news is written before it even gets to the news room. People like me are writing it. I used to be a journalist and now I have better pay, more amenable hours, no death knocks and I regularly see my press releases printed verbatim in publications across the country. Not with my byline of course…
Garry talks about increasing efficiences. Cut-paste; pretty efficent, wouldn’t you say Garry! 🙂
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And yes Garry. Smile
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“Normally the ill-informed ravings of an academic like Andrea Carson would disappear into the ether…”
So why give credence to it with a 500-word rant on an advertising trade-site, Garry?
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I think someone pinched a nerve…
“Independent. Always”… says who…Gina Rineheart?
Revenue down 8.2% 2013
Revenue down 6% 2012
Revenue unchanged from year prior
Revenue down down 2% 2011
Revenue down 10.6% in 2010
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Does anyone reading this comment have faith that Linnell/Hywood have any idea what they are doing?
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Well ‘Man who knows these things’ given Linnell’s track record it would be hard to suggest he has any idea what he is doing. But he is not on his own, as there is little evidence anyone running Fairfax over the past three decades has done well. I wish it was not so.
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If Linnell spent less time spinning and more time editing, Fairfax wouldn’t be in half the trouble it is today.
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“Fairfax is just as good as it always was! In fact, it’s better!
We, I mean you, just don’t understand what we’re doing!”
Reported last words heard from centre of vortex.
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“So much of the news is written even before it gets to the news room?” Sorry Honey, that’s not news, that’s advertising. The fact you see it printed as you wrote it (care to name where?) is a symptom of the huge losses of journalism jobs.
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Well written piece in response to hysterical doomsday piece Garry.
I too left Fairfax last year. The sadness was tempered by a generous package.
I knew my skills weren’t up to the digital focus. Fair enough. They need to change -as customers move to websites to read their news.
I’ve never understood the nasty comments people write about the company. I had 15 years as a sub – not many other professions offer that longevity and then offer packages.
They’ll be fine. More articles by Garry would be good Mumbrella.
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It’s a pity our academics havent moved along the path to understand digital better. Journalism and Marketing schools are still churning out students with no digital skills at all…
Most have never touched a website back end in their life nor have any idea how social engagement works when they finish their education… And they have a gall to criticise an industry that is at least trying to morph with the times…
Academia is completely in the dark
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Thank you Rebecca for your sweeping mindless generalizations about Academia
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Sorry Rebecca Wilson you are confusing journalism with the technical skills needed to work on a website. They are two totally different disciplines. Yes there might be some journalists do need to know how to place copy on a website. However there is no need for every journalists to have all those skills and nor is there a need for everyone who understands the workings of websites to be a journalists.
You might also like to note few comments here are related to placing copy on a website. However there is considerable comment about the content of the Fairfax websites and the publications.
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Good on you Rebecca. These academia sit in the non commercial world and bitch and moan. They are so far from the reality of daily business and particularly journalism.
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Any naive person that thinks journalism happens in isolation from the digital delivery process is missing the change frankly. If you think you can go on reporting without undestanding how people are consuming the content and what they want from that process IS the change… Sadly, if you dont think knowledge of The Internet is important to the future of journalism then I suggest you’ll enjoy academia well
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No Rebecca, journalism about telling other people’s stories. How those stories are delivered to the public is a technical skill. If you do not understand the difference you are in the wrong business. Far too many people think having the skill to place content on a website is the future of journalism, when it is what is in the content that is what is important. Just look at the good journalists at Fairfax, they are the ones who get the stories, but people who are good at inputing stories on websites need no journalistic skills. It is not hard to find people good at imputing, but it is hard to find good journalists.
And no I am not naive or in academia, but I have spent over a decade working on a news website and I’ve been involved in journalism much longer.
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