Fairfax’s guide of who to poach from the Australian Financial Review
Ever wondered who the most read journalists on the Australian Financial Review’s website are?
Well wonder no more – thanks to an administrative bungle this table charting “Top authors by subscriber pageviews”, which was only meant to be shared with senior editors, was shared with all staff, and subsequently with Dr Mumbo via the back of a truck.
Unsurprisingly the AFR’s Street Talk writers, editor Sarah Thompson, Anthony Macdonald and Jake Mitchell dominate the top of the charts in terms of traffic, leaving the likes of the much bigger journalistic names, such as Canberra gallery stalwarts Laura Tingle and Phillip Coorey, in their wake. The trio almost always have joint by-lines, hence their proximity on the table.
While the popularity of the financial newspaper’s column on the latest market movements, joint ventures etc, is of little surprise, Dr Mumbo can only imagine what the much loved and/or hated (depending on how recently he has written about you) Rear Window columnist Joe Aston made of coming in at number eight…
Of course such a table might be of interest to anyone eyeing which journalists might be good to poach. Could this lead to a Mitchell family reunion between Jake and The Australian’s editor Chris at Holt Street for example?
He’s sure those at the top of this digital beauty league table all immediately asked for pay rises as a result of their substantial contributions to the AFR’s digital strategy and long term viability…
Meanwhile spare a thought for poor tech editor Paul Smith who Dr Mumbo is sure will be more than a little disappointed at coming in at 25th, especially given his readers should be pretty digitally savvy.
Unfortunately it’s also no good for getting to the bottom of the elusive question of how much traffic the AFR.com.au gets, as someone has cropped off the pageview axis along the way.
Update Friday, May 15:
It seems the numbers have riled some at Fairfax HQ, with an anonymous ‘Fairfax insider’ claiming the above table is “statistically meaningless” as it was “simply total page views by writers rather than page views per article”.
They also included a list of the top ten journos ranked by page views per article are:
1. Laura Tingle
2. Phil Coorey
3. Jonathon Shapiro
4. Christopher Joye
5. Street Talk team
6. Neil Chenoweth
7. Mark Latham
8. Jacob Greber
9. Tony Boyd
10. Joe Aston
But they don’t stop there – claiming “inside the AFR influence and agenda-setting are highly prized” adding the “most valuable writers are regarded by management as being in no particular order”:
* Phil Coorey – one of Australia’s top political journos
* Sarah Thomson – Street Talk is constantly breaking price-sensitive deals
* Christopher Joye – the most influential banking/finance policy guy in the country
* Jonny Shaprio – the best deep-dive finance journo in Oz
* Jacob Greber – consistently high quality econ news coverage
* Neil Chenoweth – for ability to break agenda-creating news
* Jenni Hewett – centre-right opinion anchor for paper
* Tony Boyd – strong Chanticleer columnist that defends top end of town
* Joe Aston – has made Rear Window a must-read
Dr Mumbo notes he cannot account for the provenance of these latest set of claims.
Interesting that the Walkley winning Adele Ferguson doesn’t even make the list
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I’m not at all surprised that Fairfax equates “top authors” with “subscriber pageviews”.
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Shapiro 5th, yes! I knew there was a market. Bloody ripper.
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This obviously doesn’t include my coverage of the caltex block trade..otherwise I’d be number one easy…
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those numbers are completely bogus because they are ranked by absolute number of page views rather than page views per article. accordingly, the more somebody files the higher their rank. if you ranked by views/article you would see that top 5 would Tingle, Coorey, Chenoweth, Joye, and Shapiro
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Must be depressing for AFR journalists that the UBS sponsored Street Talk with its ‘throw and see what sticks’ approach is #1 given how many incorrect items it runs.
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Very important point Jonny. One worthy of editorial clarification.
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@ jay smith. journos like Adele Ferguson are rarely bylined because their output is so low. this is a list of the heavy lifters who put the paper out everyday. journos like adele focus on stories that will win them awards and plenty of headlines. they get a lot of attention and are adept at self-promotion but it’s a mistake to think they attract readers and make a big overall contribution.
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that analysis is absurd. James Chessell, one of the AFR’s best read writers, is not even ranked. John Davidson, a hugely popular IT columnist who rates off the charts, is not ranked. ranking on page views and not views/article is good misinformation for gullible critics and competitors.
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Hi guys,
We’ve been contacted by another ‘Fairfax insider’ overnight, who threw some light on some of these rankings. See the update.
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
This is hilarious
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It wasn’t shared as an “administrative bungle”, it was deliberately shared with the newsroom in a spirit of transparency to help journos make data-led decisions. Anyone in the newsroom with access to Google Analytics can already look this stuff up. To suggest it’s a result of incompetence or error is far off the mark.
It’s also not statistically meaningless to look at page views rather than page views per article. The two ways to get read more are to either produce more stories or to produce stories that get a high number of page views. Both things are valuable in terms of growing an audience.
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@Alex, how can the Fairfax insider claim the paper has “influence” when sales are falling faster than a sack of frozen turkeys dropped out of an airplane. According to today ABC’s audit, M-F hard sales are down 7.5% to 56,160 copies and Saturday sales are down 1.3% to 61,911 copies. That’s grim reading. Love the claim “Street Talk is constantly breaking price-sensitive deals”. It should read “Street Talk is constantly breaking UBS press releases.” More to the point, who the hell is Christopher Joye? Neil Chenoweth has an unrivalled ability to peddle mad conspircy theories, but it’s a big claim to allege he has the “ability to break agenda-creating news”. Not even Chen could make this conspiracy fly. Agree that Chanticleer is a good read, however.
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Interesting to see the writers often most closely associated with the AFR are not actually very popular with readers. It just shows how insidery Australian media has become. The preoccupation with insiders masquerading as journalists may also explain why paper sales are challenged. Are Fairfax editors spending too much money on writers who don’t resonate with readers and only connect with their peers, eastern suburb school mates and rich bankers. Cronyism, like nepotism, is almost impossible to avoid in any walk of life, but it has never been so blatant in Australian media. Great get Mumbrella. Cheers.
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If AFR management did in fact provide this “data” to “inform” writers, then it’s no wonder the AFR is collapsing. Readers respond to stories, not bylines. In fact there is barely any byline recognition in the real world (apart from a scant few and even then only among PRs and media insiders).
Fairfax management has been appalling in its acceptance of traffic measures as a sign of success, driving the increasing tendency toward salacious crap in the metros and the junk, spin and egopap that has taken over the Fin.
Amusing that some of these “stars” are going public with their claims to superiority.
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This is truly ridiculous. The list is meaningless. The response is pathetic. Fairfax is a zombie culture these days.
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The subscriber pv vs. subscriber pv per post debate reminds me of a time when I saw two bald men arguing over a comb. Is each column 10?
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