The recent eruption of childish corporate bickering has finally convinced me that something needs to be done to bring some sanity and improved corporate governance to the Fairfax Media board.
I have a 30-year background in journalism, mostly spent at the Fairfax papers, The Australian Financial Review and the Sydney Morning Herald. I was editor of the AFR for five years between Australia’s last great boom and bust of the late 1980s and early ’90s.
Quality journalism matters. It has been the hallmark of the Fairfax (and David Syme) mastheads for 175 years. But a casual observer would have difficulty knowing that, if they looked at the board composition and some of the ham-fisted decisions it has taken over recent decades.
With quality journalism under deep stress — courtesy of technological change that has undermined the business model on which Fairfax’s particular brand of quality rests — the last thing the company needs is the latest display of corporate madness, more reminiscent of testosterone-fuelled activity of ageing bulls in the bottom paddock.
I believe I can be a safe candidate, running independently, with no ties to any particular group on the board.
Aside from my background in general and financial journalism, I have been involved in the corporate world as long-serving chair of industry superannuation fund Media Super. When I was first chair, we managed $6 million in journalist super assets. It is now a fund with assets of $2.4 billion covering 110,000 journalists, printers, actors and workers in the entertainment industry.
I’m on the board of the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, which is dedicated to improving corporate governance in Australian-listed companies. I believe I have the business acumen to undertake a role on the Fairfax Media board and I have a deep understanding of shareholder and stakeholder needs.
I’m also a strong supporter of the Media Alliance, the organisation that represents journalists in their professional and industrial roles and that works hard to ensure adherence to a code of ethics.
I can tread a neutral path and can work with all parties, and bring an intimate knowledge to board deliberations of the one “product” the company sells — quality journalism — but which is entirely unrepresented on the board. In 2007, I won the Walkley Award for the most outstanding contribution to journalism.
As a long-standing Fairfax employee and editor, I understand the company, its audience and its customers; I’m hands-on, with real world and media experience in a rapidly changing media environment.
Gerard. It’s years since I’ve seen good reason to be a Fairfax shareholder but I’m pleased to know you are seeking a position on the company board. The Fairfax boardroom seems desperately to need someone with your knowledge, skills and personal standards. It was a rewarding experience to once work at Fairfax and especially with many people of your calibre. I’d love to see the company explore a return to a place that at least resembles what once was a decent corporate culture with consistently high journalistic standards. Against my deeper desires, I found myself recently taking out an online subscription to the Financial Times of London to help satisfy my daily need for well-researched, soundly presented, interesting and broad-based financial coverage of society at large. The cost was around one-quarter that of the AFR offering (which I also trialled) and the London based product is a smorgasbord by comparison, notwithstanding its global rather than Aussie-centric perspective. One wonders whether those who preside at Fairfax read their own product content about a need to be globally competitive! My very best wishes in your endeavour. I’ve never made money from owning Fairfax shares. Murray Massey.
I would vote for you just on the basis of what you have written if I lived, say, south of the Sunshine Coast. There is, however, a major problem with newspapers in Queensland in that we in northern Queensland can get only NewsCorp newspapers. In Townsville where I live we get the Townsville Bulletin 6 days a week; the Courier Mail/Sunday Mail 7 days a week and the Australian 6 days a week. No Fairfax newspapers are available unless you want to pay for airmail delivery and get it in a couple of days. When you get on the Board I think there will be a little more to do than just governance. I would suggest you have a look at investment in a press for some newspaper competition in Townsville. You might also want to have a look at how far it is from Townsville to Brisbane; how many people live in the greater Townsville region; and the wide demographic that regional Queensland presents to organisations that really know their customers, potential and actual.
What a pitch.
One problem. Fairfax management doesn’t appear to be a meritocracy. Just like major party politics. And quite a few other institutions around the place.
Your application may be frozen at birth by studied indifference of lesser mortals intimidated by the real thing.
Or as a colleague describes it – too many roosters. There’s nothing like serious competency to court fear and loathing amongst misplaced, misconceived privilege.