Axed Fairfax journalist Michael West to launch own investigative journalism website
West: The Fairfax strategy is clearly a clickbait one
Former Sydney Morning Herald investigative business journalist Michael West has signalled an intention to go out on his own, publishing investigative pieces on his own website which is set to launch after the Federal election.
West was one of an estimated 30 forced redundancies made by Fairfax Media this month, which saw the likes of AFR media editor Dominic White, economics editor Alan Mitchell, international editor Tony Walker, cartoonist Rod Clement and property editor and associate editor Robert Harley depart the publishing company.
At the time, West tweeted: “Last day today. Told my skill-set not aligned with Fairfax strategy going forward. #sacked”.
Speaking with Mumbrella, West described the situation at Fairfax as “grim”, suggesting the publisher is clearly going down a click-bait strategy.
“The strategy appears to be “costs out” while, content-wise it’s quite clear that the strategy is a clickbait one. It might have worked in getting a big audience but it is undermining the long-term value of the mastheads and of the journalism,” he said.
Not giving up #journalismhttps://t.co/SMI8DPUU56
— Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) May 30, 2016
“Essentially what’s happened with my redundancy is management caved in, they no longer backed me. As far as I’m concerned the outcry on Twitter was not because of me but because of what I represent: someone willing to have a go and try to tell the truth and stand up and tell truth to power, which is what, as journalists, we’re meant to do.
“The fuss about my departure, it wasn’t me so much, but what I represent. A lot of people felt ‘where is the commitment to journalism’?” West said.
“Clearly managers are going to come under pressure when you go up against a big corporate entity, especially when that entity is an advertiser. There’s going to be pressure, but in the old days, when I was an editor, we’d stand up against that pressure and say ‘if they go, I go’.
“The bosses are on KPIs where they benefit personally and financially by sacking their own staff. Their KPIs are short-term – you might get the share price up a few cents and you might get the cost base down a little – but in the longer-term it’s a fast path to oblivion.
“It’s very sad for the public interest. There’s some still very fine journalists at Fairfax but the management isn’t very crash hot,” he added.
On his redundancy, West said Fairfax had “unwittingly” done him a favour.
“When I posted #sacked on Twitter it looked like a terrible situation but by that evening the calls had already started to come in. The support was really good, it just showed there was some interest out there in journalism,” he said.
Last day today. Told my skill-set not aligned with Fairfax strategy going forward. #sacked
— Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) May 13, 2016
On launching his own website, West said he “didn’t want to fade away into corporate PR”.
“I wanted to continue to fight and to work in the public interest. Fairfax has unwittingly done me a favour – although they haven’t done a favour for their readers.
“Suffice it to say, I’ll be committed to doing investigative journalism and continuing to work with my very good contacts and the public to deliver stories that are in the public interest.”
On his new independent venture, West said the website, which is yet to settle upon a funding model, will provide readers with a mixture of contributor content and content written by West himself.
“The business model isn’t settled yet. I’ve had interest from various funders and other parties wanting to do a joint-venture. I’ve had really good interest,” he said.
“There’ll be contributors and research joint-ventures and hopefully big scoops.”
West has not ruled out an advertising-based funding model.
“Ad funding on its own, unless you have massive traffic, it’s hard to make a reasonable living. That may not be viable but I’m not ruling it out.”
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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Good on you, Michael. All the best with it.
There’s a passion for investigative journalism over at https://reddit.com/r/australia, as well as a very large audience.
And don’t be shy to make an account and engage them. They love that stuff too.
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West raises a good point about clickbait.
Methinks that the upper echelons of Fairfax don’t understand that when they see the ‘digital audience’ all it takes is one click a month to contribute to that MONTHLY total audience figure. That’s worth bugger-all in a CPM campaign and nothing in a CPC campaign.
They sell around 100,000 SMH’s a day – just shy of 3 million a month. Do the maths yourself.
Eroding editorial will have little effect on clickbait activity but will erode subscriptions and eventually hard-copy sales.
There is data, and data that you understand. It feels like the latter.
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Admirable idea — and you may well build a reasonable sort of audience, but I think that like pretty much every other journalist who has struck out on their own, you will struggle with monetisation. If the main revenue model is advertising, you will need massive scale to generate meaningful revenues. If it’s subscription, you will bump up against the same problem big media has encountered: very few people are prepared to pay for content, even very good content.
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Stoked to hear this. I obviously respect the commitment to investigation that Michael has and am very glad he will be continuing as the public need his eagle eye on business nowadays more than ever, though, for mine, the best thing about Michael’s reporting is how he can convert the murky ‘business’ world with all it’s terminology into ‘English’ the rest of us can understand. So glad we will no be losing his skills & talent!
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More than a handful of big-time shysters won’t welcome this development.
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the only journalist in australia that knew enough about the bigbiz arseholes to actually work out what was going on and report it..but without fairfax bucks behind him, it’ll be a more dangerous game, better get a lawyer son!
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Good on you Michael. Looking forward to your new work.
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Fairfax don’t seem to understand their subscribers. They could drop every single sport story and have subscriber numbers rise-or at least stay. I’ll bet they have never read Saturday paper etc keep us in touch there are many ways we can support not only financially one possible business model might include SMSF trustees for example
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Delighted to hear M.W. is determined to keep fighting the good fight – the country needs his uncompromising exposure of shonky and unethical business practices and tax dodging. Key to his survival is obviously finance. Doubt that advertising or subscriptions will do it. Unless he can hook up with The Guardian or ABC or some such news organisation that’s independent of the very advertisers/corporates his work necessarily investigates, his best bet would seem to be either through an angel investor/ financier who shares his commitment and expects no financial return or through crowd funding. Would think there are many equally concerned Australians who would support him. Either way I hope he can pull it off.
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Good on michael
Always looked forward to your articles
The country needs journalists like you
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This is good news because Michael Wests writing is entertaining as well as news worthy. I love his style. I will be checking his news website over Fairfax’s. I wish him well with this venture.
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Your articles were the first I turned to, followed by Gittin’s.
Thankfully Verrender has found a home (and platform) at the ABC – but for how long?
The once mighty SMH masthead sinking beneath the waves, succumbing to the chimera that pop journalism is it’s saviour. Those of us who looked for brave, punchy investigative insights into what is really going on in the secretive world of corpmoney have been abandoned by the msm. My subscription hangs by a thread.
Is The Guardian the only major player left on the scene? They need a West to join the diminishing band of journo’s with principle and integrity.
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Look forward to the day when Michael West is a Senator. He can do good work there. In these days of low-cost digital publicity, it might not be too hard.
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Well played Michael.
From what I’ve seen so far, you’ll have my support. Continue to stand up to the establishment where it is warranted.
There are way too many “yes men” in the MSM.
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