Opinion

Fairfax to Mumbrella: If you say our print revenues have declined it’s because you want to damage us

Yesterday, I wrote about the appointment of Greg Hywood as acting CEO at Fairfax Media.

Fairfax believes that article indicates I am “determined to damage The Age” because in the 15th paragraph I mentioned “the state of the paper’s ad revenue”. The company has requested I publish the following, which I’m delighted to do – in full. My response appears below.

“I refer to your opinion piece in Mumbrella yesterday about the comings and goings at the top level within Fairfax Media.

While I acknowledge your right to publish your opinions in whatever way you wish, I do not acknowledge your right to distort the facts of the matter.  

As has happened all too often recently, numerous commentators – seemingly all feeding off each other – have made assertions about Fairfax Media and The Age in particular that are simply not true.

Your sweeping statement yesterday that, “somewhat controversially considering the state of the paper’s ad revenue, one Melbourne-based agency boss nominates The Age’s sales supremo David Hoath” infers not least of all that we have experienced considerable decline in our overall advertising revenue. There is no factual basis for such an inference.

We are amazed that you have bought into the nonsense that has been published by our competitors. As our Acting CEO, Greg Hywood stated in an email to staff yesterday, it is “uninformed and incorrect bile”. He asked us not to be distracted by it. You shouldn’t be distracted by it either.

As Greg also stated: “The Age is a great paper, at the heart of Fairfax, with great journalists and a great commercial backbone.”

Please be good enough to let your readers know that, as is actually the case, The Age is performing strongly in the market.

By regurgitating the misinformation published by our competitors, I can only conclude that, like those with ulterior motives, you are determined to damage The Age.”

Miranda Schuppan

Communications Manager

The Age

So there you have it. The rivers of gold have not dried up. Classified advertising has not migrated to the web. The launch of rival real estate title The Weekly Review has not hurt real estate income.

Which is fine – it’s okay to argue that I’m mistaken about all of those things (I’m sure by the way, that this year is slightly better than last year’s all time low for the newspaper industry, but the cyclical changes of the GFC doesn’t in my view reverse the longer term trend of declines in print revenue.)

But it raises a new question. Under Brian McCarthy, Fairfax tended to be something of a punchbag – never complaining, never explaining. This is, I think, the first time I’ve had a direct complaint from Fairfax in Melbourne about something I’ve written. Fair enough to argue the substance, but using that first communication to accuse me of having an agenda of being “determined to damage The Age”, doesn’t leave much room for escalation later on if I really annoy them. Particularly when it was a passing reference in the 15th paragraph of the piece that appears to have triggered their belief that I want to hurt The Age.

(For the record, I suspect I’m one of very few loyal Sydney-based readers of  the masthead.)

I wonder though whether this signals that there is already a new us-versus-the-rest-of-the-world attitude emerging under Hywood’s leadership.

It may not actually be a bad strategy as a way of bringing the staff together. If you can build an ethos where you’re united against a common enemy, it’s good for morale. On occasion it’s even been used by News Corp editors in various parts of the world.

It can, however, make you sound a tad paranoid.

Tim Burrowes

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