The Weekend Fin‘s tally sheet. According to today’s riveting Media Diary, Fin editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury is being edged out by young bright thing Matthew Drummond, editor of the weekend edition, who apparently has the ear of Business Media chief Sean Aylmer. The Oz also claims the Weekend Fin hasn’t broken a yarn in a year, which Stutch wasn’t happy about this morning.
“Its ridiculous and untrue,” he told Crikey in an email, before taking us through some of the yarns the paper’s broken in the past three weeks. These included the scoop that politically influential seniors’ groups were strongly opposing Arthur Sinodinos’ FOFA changes (two days later the new minister put the changes on hold), the March figures that showed that house prices were rising again after a brief pause (“The Financial Review has led the national debate on this, ever since the paper splashed our page one story on the housing price risk in Australia when the RBA cut its cash rate to a record low 2.5%”), and this Saturday’s splash, which was about superannuation funds complaining that high-frequency trading was skimming close to $2 billion a year from investors (“As we exclusively report this morning, this issue prompted ASIC to threaten to introduce clamps on super-fast computer trades”).
“These may not be stories the other national masthead wants to focus on, but then the Financial Review is a business and financial daily with its own priorities,” Stutchbury said. The Weekend Fin, he says, “needs to reflect the news-breaking focus of the Monday-to-Friday editions while still reflecting the non-work interests and passions of our readers”. Drummond is doing “a great job” in the role of weekend editor, Stutchbury says. Make of that what you will. — Myriam Robin
Vox pops up online. Today marks the first day in former Washington Post wunderkind Ezra Klein’s well-funded new foray into explanatory journalism. Vox.com launched just hours ago, and leads with a long, relatively traditional feature by Klein on why politics is making Americans stupid, as well as explainers on the Ukraine crisis, Obamacare and Game of Thrones.
The website’s never aimed to do news as it is commonly done, but instead, to explain news in a way that promotes understanding among those not necessarily following the blow-by-blow. And so, the explainers revolve around “cards” — separate pages each giving you the background into a specific part of the story, or answering a common question readers might have. The idea is that as a story develops, reporters will update the cards. As Klein told the NYT over the weekend, he wants to avoid incrementalism. “The biggest source of waste is everything the journalist has written before today,” he said. — Myriam Robin
Starting team at The Guardian wraps up. The Guardian Australia culture and features Vicky Frost headed back to the UK this weekend, marking the latest in Guardian Australia senior staff heading back to the mother country. A few weeks ago, launch editor Kath Viner announced she’d leave towards the middle of the year to take up a position with Guardian US. The Guardian is expanding to Melbourne, having recently advertised a number of positions, including that of a deputy comment and culture editor. But no word yet on who will fill the Melbourne-based roles.
Front page of the day. Megan Gale has joined a long line of female celebrities to welcome motherhood by posing naked on the front of a fashion magazine …
Why oh why do women in the public eye feel the need to parade their huge gut for the world to see? Puleese…
What for? Do they feel invisible? Do they want other women to think that pregnancy is empowering? Cue to 6-10 weeks later when they appear on a mag bemoaning their baby fat or otherwise looking as if they have eaten no food since the birth.
Seriously, have your kid and leave our eyes alone FFS