“Why would we be expanding our print facilities in North Richmond and Ballarat if we were considering such a move?!”
Double punctuation. Greg Hywood is mad. In grasping the hospital pass to be Fairfax CEO, Hywood has withstood intense criticism of the management of the country’s most storied institution for quality journalism — much of it entirely fair. He is fighting back the best he can.
That line was from a staff missive this morning, which Crikey publishes today, in relation to reports The Age and The Sydney Morning could stop printing weekday editions sooner rather than later. It comes after a week in which one of Hywood’s own journalists — Pamela Williams — published a book raking over the litany of sheer management incompetence that has left the company on life support. Hywood reserved page two of his papers today to republish a weekend SMH editorial that stated:
“… Fairfax is developing a business model that can ensure the Herald serves the Australian public with independent journalism for another 182 years. That Williams can write a book which exposes her employer to cheap shots from rivals says a lot about editorial independence.”
Perhaps. And Hywood is right about one thing: the glee with which James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch have danced on the plot reserved for Fairfax, an institution that should be holding them to account, is galling. But the suggestion that this company — bleeding cash, wedded to failing business models, slashing and burning the only resource it is valued for, its journalism — will be around in its current form in another 182 years is the sort of blind hubris he accuses the rich kids of.
Hywood should direct his anger at the real culprits — his current chairman, Roger Corbett, and the “honour” roll of former executives that ran the place into the ground.
Harsh, but oh so sadly true.
Fairfax is broken and we’re all the poorer.
Not sure there’s much point in Heywood slagging off his current chairman though.
The damage is already done and looks terminal.
That what was once a fine publication has become redundant is appalling. That it is leaving the whole field open to Rupert Murdoch’s gutter scribblings is a Greek tragedy no less.
Paul Keating, I will never forgive you for allowing media trash, aka Rupert Murdoch’s trash, to dominate the Australian press. As time goes past you will be judged by history as having been just another mediocre politician. One to whom capitulation was easier than having backbone.
Hywood slag off Corbett! I am still laughing. Oh, how funny. The only reason Hywood is there and has remained there is Corbett. I love this pathetic “he’s one of us” routine. Hywood has been panhandling his way around Packer and Murdoch since the day (the very day) Hilmer fired him. He’s still sucking up. But now his weasel ways have caught up and he’s grumpy. Not because of what is said about Fairfax. It’s the references in Williams’ book to Hywood and Corbett’s “strategy” that has narked. Have a proper look at the past two years.It is shocking. Giant amounts spoent on consultants and on redundancies. Big fat salaries paid to mates. Newspapers gutted of their best people for no good reason, while the fat cats feast on.
Seriously, who is left in the SMH worth reading? The Sainted Ross Gittins, Jacqueline Malley & Jessisca Irvine and ..err… that’s all folks.
I pick up week-old SMHs from my village library when they are thrown out, for the Non-Sequitor cartoon, the puzzles – xwords, sudoko & ken-ken – but give the front a quick glance but apart from those above (oh & Paul McGeough for foreign stuff) the bulk is of the quality & relevance of a suburban free sheet, ads, life style & advertorials.
As for that Sydney magazine insert .. words fail me apart from WTF? or, as Lowood has it, WTF?!
All filler – land filler.