The Australian editor takes aim at Fairfax, defends paper’s place at News Corp
Chris Mitchell speaking yesterday at Mumbrella360
The editor-in-chief of News Corp’s national paper The Australian has taken aim at rivals Fairfax accusing them of misleading advertisers over the demographics of their audience online, and said he will only retire when he has a successor.
The iconoclastic newspaper editor yesterday spoke at the Mumbrella360 conference in a wide ranging conversation with his CEO Nicholas Gray and Mumbrella content director Tim Burrowes, which saw them discuss social media, the 50th anniversary of the national broadsheet, Mitchell’s own future and the competitive landscape.
“Picking up on Nicholas’s point on the nature about the nature of our digital offering, I think it is a big issue for some of our competitors,” said Mitchell. “I love talking about our competitors and if you think about who the Sydney Morning Herald selling to traditionally it was the AB readership of the eastern suburbs and the north shore.
And what about the oz demographic? A bunch of old farts in south east queensland sucking on a bile biscuit. Just look at these folk: Linnell and Mitchell; is that all they have to say? And barely comprehensible at that. This ineptitude must surely accelerate the demise of once important news media.
Better to buy Fairfax and get an AB readership rather than buying The Australian and getting no readers at all.
It might come as a bit of a shock to some, but The Australian is a national newspaper and the Sydney Morning Herald is not. Consequently the papers are not competitors. However if it were possible to sustain an argument that the two papers were in competition, The Australian would come a very poor second. Its circulation must be one of the great disappointments in Australian media.
Lachlan Murdoch committed to print? Doubtful. Sounds like a sales pitch to talk up potential of print ads while NewsCorp loses clients. His father, Rupert Murdoch, was celebrating the death of newspapers a few years ago – “no paper, no printing plants, no unions. It’s going to be great.”
http://yournewreality.blogspot.....apers.html
Unsure if mitchell is mr. burns or grandpa simpson … or a hybrid of both.
In 1910, 10% of the UK workforce was employed in hat manufacturing. What’s this got to do with newspapers? Nothing – except it helps illustrate that times and behaviours change. Companies have to go where the audience, and therefore where the money is.
There’s no point churning out newspapers in printed form if no one is buying them just as there’s no point churning out hats if no one is wearing them. http://bit.ly/1rN1U7w
to be fair… how “national” is the Oz?
I know it gets dropped into all the capital cities, but the readership numbers suggest that excluding the east coast, no one is reading it.
Newspapers that are now little more than political mouthpieces for interfering owners and self absorbed editors are rapidly plumeting toward extinction.
Its a very sad thing that instead of working to create a better product and reverse the decline, those in power simply point and laugh at their neighbour… as their house falls off the cliff.
Was there ANY mention during the discussion…about great stories, investigative journalism or even a great (unbiased) interview from the pages? No?…never mind, we’ve got more 80 year old millionaires than you have.
Fairfax is often Reddit a day later. Take today’s front page of the age. Racist rant video and Go Pro footage of a bike getting stolen we’re on Reddt yesterday. Then there’s an article about Iggy Azalea – not quite as good as the one I read in the guardian yesterday but admittedly a different angle. There are a lot more Top 10 style articles trashing the brand. I read the Guardian more now. Admittedly I don’t read the Australian at all!
Anybody else do a double-take on this quote:” I start with ABC breakfast, then move to 702..”?
Not Today, not SkyNews, not Alan Jones – instead his morning info comes via the dreaded Labor/Greens empire that News Corp wants emasculated/crippled/closed down???
Don’t tell me it’s a case of “know thine enemy” when it is obviously a case of accidental admission that there’s only one quality electronic news source worth bothering about
News Corp editor fires a broadside at Fairfax Editor. Fairfax Editor snipes back. News Corp editor comes again. Fairfax Editor lobs a volley back. Seriously, apart from the two protagonists and some of their navel gazing cohorts, who cares? Is it really news that Fairfax and News Corp don’t think much of each other?
Mitchell clearly understands neither democracy nor competition. The fact that he believes the bitch-slapping and mooning that goes on in his newspaper (and quite often that of his soulmate Stutchbury) is somehow related to those concepts is sad confirmation of his shopworn intellect.
Clem Ford doesn’t write for the herald! Does Mitchell read Daily Life these days??
Chris Mitchell is OBSESSED with Fairfax and their digital pace. Does he own a computer? Wouldn’t even ask if he know what a smart phone is.
@forest Nahm: Daily Life stories — often including Clem Ford’s – are promoted on the home page of the herald and age daily.
Nothing like a good swipe at the SMH to bring out the cool lefties.
Jesus wept.
@lindsay actually 50% of SMH.com.au audience is based outside NSW according to Nielsen Online Ratings, essentially making it a national title (or half irrelevant metro-based paper, depending on your POV).
@ Sam: about 30% or more of the SMH’s traffic comes from Overseas (same for all other news sites). I guess that makes it an international title.
Buzzards squawking over the carcass.
isn’t mumbrella just part of this same echo chamber? and media watch? and the aus media section? and…crikey. does joe public really care?
i think the point is advertisers care. and they sustain the media, so if they didn’t support a media brand and it went out of business then joe public would care.
so the echo chamber has some value? or it has the potential to have value, if used right?
At least we can regard journalists at Fairfax as journalists (aside from the non independent advertorials, which promote their own products, such as Domain…) The investigative journalism is very good at Fairfax.
Anyone pushing pens / typing it out at News Corp however is a PR person for the right wing agenda. There are not any credible journalists at The Australian, nor at any of the local comic book fodder tabloids either. The day after the budget, News.com.au had Kevin Rudd on it’s homepage, swiping away as they do; being evil.
Sam, online is one thing newspaper sales are another. If it was logical to assume online interest in the SMH made it a National product, you would also need to attach some of the online traffic The Age and Canberra Times get as all three sites share much of the same content. The truth is despite all the rubbish that has gone on at Fairfax over the past two decades, the SMH still out sells The Australian on the news stands where both papers are sold. It might have something to do with the News Corp publications limiting their audience to the Mad Right.