> On 26 Mar 2016, at 10:28 AM, JanW <jw...@internode.on.net> wrote: > > Fairfax is dying. Their best journos jumped ship long ago, moving to places > where scrutiny is valued. Murdoch press will follow. >
Mmmm … I’ve noticed that. There are still a few worth reading (Michael West, Kate McKlymont, Adele Ferguson etc etc) but there’s a long coterie of younger bods that seem to have trouble distinguishing between government/industry/political public relations and real news. As an example, Nicole Hashem did a piece yesterday on people ‘ripping off’ DFAT overseas by taking out emergency loans (for emergency medical treatment and the like) and not repaying them. Apparently the cost of this heinous activity in one year alone amounted to $215,000, and some people even took out loans for a whole $15,000 and didn’t repay them. No mention of course that this is precisely what DFAT is supposed to do for Australian passport holders (it’s part of their job description), and that DFAT makes approximately $240 million per annum from those of us who take out or renew passports - aside from what they get from the government. It looked like the whole article was a neocon plant written simply to make out that Joe Hockey's ‘leaners' were taking advantage of the DFAT lifters again. It looked like it was written by DFAT. Another example, Nassim Khadem has been on the back of the ATO generally for more than 2 years now on the subject of taxpayer’s rights (you know, those things neocons promote for multi-nationals and the Big End of Town, but deny to the rest of us), and lauding the ‘Inspector General of Taxation’ (God I love that pretentious title!). She’s been essentially cheerleading for the tax avoidance industry and using the Big 4 accounting firms, perennial tax avoiders and those who don’t pay their tax to support her commitment to the cause. She’s moderated her approach recently (as nasties concerning the tax avoidance crowd she’s so enamoured with keep surfacing with monotonous regularity) … but now the bottom is falling out of the revenue, I guess she feels 'her work is done’. Bottom line; Of late I look to the Age and the SMH for far more trite and PR handout driven articles and analysis than was customary in the past. Fairfax is fast losing its edge, and as you say a lot of good Fairfax journalists have migrated to media which appreciates their talents. Sign of the times I suppose … paper really is dead, and most of the incisive and hard edged journalism is moving to digital, blogs, twitter and the like. I thought years ago that hubs for news and opinion would appear, places where content was aggregated and (sadly) tailored for individual consumers/readers … but it’s all happening faster than even I predicted. Now all they need to do is find a business model that works … but I subscribe to a few of them for actual money, advertisers seem to be coming onboard, and I’m guessing we’ll push to some public funding or other model in future. The good thing is that Rupert (who’s digital efforts have not been particularly successful - some would argue disastrous) and his maniacal right wing neocon outlets will also be subsumed in the conflagration, and that his content business (Foxtel, film production, national geographic) will have to actually fight for online space with far more nimble, distributed and offbeat content distribution competitors … but it’s sad to see a once proud mainstream media company like Fairfax going down in flames. Just my 2 cents worth … --- _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
