Criminals, cheats, hacks and trolls must be rejoicing. The biggest non-Murdoch-controlled media organisation in our country has this morning disappeared, floating out to a muddy sea of “merger” talks with Nine.
Crikey has long been a critic of Fairfax, as it has all media, but the loss of its name as part of this takeover, and the potential roll-on effects to mastheads and reportage will drastically change the communities it covers — and democracy in Australia.
Today and as this takeover unfolds, Crikey will report, analyse and investigate what this means for the media landscape as well as for those of us who have benefited from countless Fairfax exposés, those of us who value independent journalism. Vale Fairfax.
We are grief stricken, but have been softened up for the loss, by journalists being replaced by churnalists for quite some time now. Mostly, all to miss are the comments! but I will no longer be a subscriber.
A very sad day. The Age has been diminishing for ages but it is still a far cry from the overtly right-wing Murdoch papers and there are some journalists I like to follow.
What is the future of Australia?
We must all keep independent journalism alive and fight for the few fair and brave sources we have left.
I agree with both the comments of GF50 and Anne MF. I knew a man who worked for The Age for most of his life, setting up the jobs ads for the Saturday paper. He was very proud of The Age and to work for Fairfax. He would be squirming in his grave now. I’m unsure of the future for Australian journalism. I certainly won’t be turning to the Murdoch press and with the current government being hell bent on destroying the ABC, where will it all end. It is a very sorry state of affairs.
Fairfax was always conflicted. It was a Conservative Corporation forced to the Centre Left because of the polorisation of far right Politics by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp media. Their need to also attract right wing readership to support circulation sat awkwardly with their majority readership who were critical of the blatant News Corp neo-liberal ideology.
Most journalists saw News Corp as their only fall back employment opportunity so even their criticism of News Corp propaganda and group think was fairly moderate and measured.
Now where will the reasonable centre get reliable News rather than right wing Fox style “Opinion as News” or character assassination.
The ABC is reduced to reading the Australian and The SMH headlines and its now obligatory soft puff pieces from old copies of the ‘Womans Weekly’ to sooth whats left of the audience.
We will now be at the mercy of Donald Trumps new Best Octogenarian Friend, tweeting headlines to The Australian so the ABC newsreader can repeat them like a metronome untill the next tweet comes in.
The standard of The Age has been on a downward spiral for a long time .. I’ll renew my six month subscription for the last time next month, only to get the Leunig calendar.
And then it’s goodbye,
The New Right has had a massive win, but not at the expense of FXJ directors or shareholders, who likely will have a huge payout via bonuses and the like.
For the rest of us one of the few sources of balanced reporting will be under the direction of Peter Costello, whose track record of tax handouts and NR bias hardly qualifies him for equality or fairness.
Well it only remains for the New Right to reduce funding or simply discredit the ABC at every opportunity to ensure that the voice of reasonableness disappears completely, and those born to rule, do so.