Lack of media experience on Fairfax board makes no sense says former Sun-Herald editor Ita Buttrose
Former editor Ita Buttrose has derided the management of Fairfax, saying much of the blame for the company’s woes lies with the media inexperience of successive boards.
Buttrose spent four years at Fairfax including as editor-in-chief of the company’s Sunday paper the Sun-Herald. Buttrose was also editor-in-chief of News Limited’s Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph along with magazines including Cleo, Australian Women’s Weekly and Ita.
In a video interview with Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes, Buttrose said that the company had never got over the bungled takeover of the company by Warwick Fairfax in 1987.
She said: “Young Warwick Fairfax came along, launched his abortive takeover, destroyed the company in my opinion.
“I don’t think Fairfax has recovered from that day. It’s not been well administered.
“Many times it’s had people on its boards who have no media experience – you wonder why. Why would you have a board that did not have people with media experience? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
The current Fairfax board is chaired by Roger Corbett, best known for his time as CEO of Woolworths. However, Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood has lengthy media experience, mainly in senior editorial roles within Fairfax.
The high turnover of chief executives and the failure to get to grips with digital was another factor, Buttrose said. ‘They’ve had a succession of CEOs. It’s common knowledge they failed to understand what digital would do.
“You look at how they neglected to save their real estate. You think how misguided could this board be?”
She also criticised the failure to follow moves in other parts of the world and take the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age to a compact format sooner. British broadsheets The Independent, The Times and The Guardian moved to compact almost a decade ago. Last month Fairfax said it would do the same with The Age and the SMH next year.
Buttrose said of Fairfax: “Ten years ago they built a factory to produce a broadsheet newspaper… you think where was the rationale behind that decision? When everybody in media knows that broadsheets have had their day.”
She also criticised the company’s share price – currently 58c, down from 99c a year ago and $5 five years ago. “As a shareholder in Fairfax I couldn’t possibly say I’m delighted with the share price – it’s abysmall.”
She called for the company to provide its journalists with more leadership over the current changes. She said: “I don’t think it’s a very confident way that it has been presented, either to the public or the people who work there. There must be such confusion among the workers.
“When you employ creative people – and that’s what photographs, journalists and artists are – they are quite fragile in a way. You can destroy a person’s creativity overnight.”
“They don’t seem to have a good picture of what the future holds. I don’t think Fairfax has one either.”
She added: “Fairfax now call these things topics, and a journalist is a responder, which sounds like something out of an electricity box. Editors have now become producers. I don’t know why we’ve got to rename everybody. In our business everybody knows what an editor does. Everybody knows what a journalist does. They’re very good words.
“To be a journalist is to be a member of a wonderful profession and we should not allow anyone to take that name away from us.”
- Mumbrella’s full interview with Buttrose – part of a publicity tour around the new edition of her autobiography A Passionate Life – will be uploaded later today.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Ita for Fairfax CEO!
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Ita knows perfectly well why the Fairfax board was useless and remains useless. You just need to connect the dots back to the receivership.
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Poor editorial job here, folks. Although Buttrose has a valid point!
“When you employ creative people – and that’s what photographs are journalists and artists are – they are quite fragile in a way. You can destroy a person’s creativity overnight.”
This should read “that’s what photographers, journalists and artists are[…]”
Fragile because they are human, not cold-blooded, blue-tongues!
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Here Here!!!!
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Please advise a single English language newspaper that kept its classified revenues (good luck with that).
For the record, Fairfax:
1. Has completely lost employment
2. Has lost auto listings but kept auto display
3. Has more real estate revenue today than it ever has
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Ita is mostly correct about what’s happened in the past. But we need to stop listening to all this commentary about the past and let go! The media can be its own worst enery, giving airplay and space to self proclaimed commentators with major ego’s who live in the past.
Can we please have interviews with people who are more about the future, and perhaps some insight into Fairfax’s current strategy ? The board and senior management do have some good media people involved. I think if we took a real look we’d probably find a good plan for Fairfax’s future.
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Hey Hmmm … where? where?
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Ita is simply amazing. She should be the one running Fairfax!
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Look, Ita’s hot. And on the money. Her perspective is valid and not mired in the past. She would get my vote. But I’m a Wombat so what would I know?
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But why has Ita kept her Fairfax shares all these years ? Probably for the same reason many others have. They just couldn’t see it coming.
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