#NineFairfax deal end of an era for Australia’s media titans
While the Nine-Fairfax deal came as a shock to some, the media’s tendency towards competitive co-operation is actually as Australian as it gets, writes Bridget Griffen-Foley in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Competition and co-operation. The former may seem an obvious aspect of the Australian media landscape, but it has always gone hand-in-hand with pragmatic co-operation.
Since the 1920s, the Packer and Murdoch media companies have been entwined with the oldest of Australia’s “old media” firms, Fairfax Media, which has its origins in the 1841 endeavours of printer and journalist John Fairfax.
When a young Frank Packer and his business partner, former Queensland Labor Premier and federal Treasurer E.G. Theodore, re-launched the Sydney Telegraph as the Daily Telegraph in 1936, the Dickensian Sydney Morning Herald responded by hiring new editorial staff, using more pictures, encouraging tighter writing, and improving its coverage of horse racing.
