How West Australian Newspapers plans to play on the national stage
Two months ago, Anthony De Ceglie was appointed senior editor for West Australian Newspapers. On a call from Canberra, De Ceglie discusses his plans to launch a paywall, building out the regional proposition and tweaking a long-standing print product.
Anthony De Ceglie always said he would return to Western Australia if the opportunity to edit the daily paper presented itself.
Now, after almost three years at The Daily Telegraph, that’s where he finds himself: in an office an almost five hour flight away from his former Holt St headquarters, to take up a role bigger than he could have imagined.
De Ceglie was appointed to the helm of West Australian Newspapers in December
Is that why The West now looks like a clone of the Daily Telegraph? The same font for the headlines, the same red straplines, the same placement of photos as a Murdoch tabloid, the same slick, double meaning headline style (“Sell, sell, cell”). Rupert may have had to sell The West in 1987 when he took over HWT, looks like he has it back again.
I didn’t realize others might think the same as I’ve been feeling the past few months. That the newspaper I’ve looked forward to read in the mornings for the past 38 years has become like a comic book. Double meaning words, huge photos – with someone’s head sticking out the edge for some reason. And news suddenly so boring. Good news articles are short, and bad news articles go on and on.
Such a pity – spoilt my morning cuppa and start to the day.
De Ceglie sadly is trashing the journalism standards at The West. I have been a subscriber for 30 years. My time spent with the paper each morning has dropped from an average 40 minutes to 10. Why? Because it’s now full of material on its news pages which simply isn’t news . . . more like the puff and giggle stuff you’d expect in New Idea or similar. It also uses valuable news space to run promotional items for Channel 7, its owner’s station. The West also persists in giving away its best stories each day via a Twitter account and associated company website. That’s a real slap in the face for us paying subscribers. It’s heartened to learn in Zoe’s story that this may change soon.
There’s is a reason people pay money for mastheads like the AFR, FT and The Times, it’s journalism that informs and educates. The new look West has no ‘news’ worth paying for, reading Gary Adsheds thimble for of knowledge on whatever the zeitgeist is spewing out that day isn’t value for money, nor is the constant millennial baiting, it’ll be boobs on page 3 next.
It’s a Daily Mail come Telegraph wannabe and the standard of reporting and quality of the articles since De Ceglie arrived is through the floor. I’ve read lads mags with more journalistic integrity.
On the weekend there are piles and piles of papers out the back of every Maccas and Bunnings. These are all counted in the circulation figures, which tells you the way Emma reports circ and readership is utter nonsense.
No doubt they will bundle newspaper subscribers in on the paywall deal and claim big numbers of subscribers in the first few months, it won’t last, the content just isn’t good enough and their rusted on readers aren’t going to be around forever.
Genuinely gutted for the team that work there, some great journalists who have nowhere else to go and are stuck writing nonsense about Meghan Markle or how they find it difficult to catch a train in Perth.
Oh, and they tried the paywall thing before, it didn’t end well, paywall it and watch the numbers tumble.
Those piles of papers you refer to are called ‘returns’ and are netted out of the circulation figures.
As someone who has worked there in many different departments, I know this not to be true.
:0)
Terry is right
Agree on every count Terry
Admirable words (mainly) from the new boss of the West but disturbing to know he will mimic Chris Dore in many areas … Dore totally stuffed the Courier-Mail after two seriously good editors in David Fagan and the short-lived Michael Crutcher had the paper going pretty well. Dore changed the CM into a sort of comic book with his outlandish front pages and dumbed-down content. The CM has never recovered.