Fairfax’s guide of who to poach from the Australian Financial Review
Ever wondered who the most read journalists on the Australian Financial Review’s website are?
Well wonder no more – thanks to an administrative bungle this table charting “Top authors by subscriber pageviews”, which was only meant to be shared with senior editors, was shared with all staff, and subsequently with Dr Mumbo via the back of a truck.
Click to enlarge.
Unsurprisingly the AFR’s Street Talk writers, editor Sarah Thompson, Anthony Macdonald and Jake Mitchell dominate the top of the charts in terms of traffic, leaving the likes of the much bigger journalistic names, such as Canberra gallery stalwarts Laura Tingle and Phillip Coorey, in their wake. The trio almost always have joint by-lines, hence their proximity on the table.
Interesting that the Walkley winning Adele Ferguson doesn’t even make the list
I’m not at all surprised that Fairfax equates “top authors” with “subscriber pageviews”.
Shapiro 5th, yes! I knew there was a market. Bloody ripper.
This obviously doesn’t include my coverage of the caltex block trade..otherwise I’d be number one easy…
those numbers are completely bogus because they are ranked by absolute number of page views rather than page views per article. accordingly, the more somebody files the higher their rank. if you ranked by views/article you would see that top 5 would Tingle, Coorey, Chenoweth, Joye, and Shapiro
Must be depressing for AFR journalists that the UBS sponsored Street Talk with its ‘throw and see what sticks’ approach is #1 given how many incorrect items it runs.
Very important point Jonny. One worthy of editorial clarification.
@ jay smith. journos like Adele Ferguson are rarely bylined because their output is so low. this is a list of the heavy lifters who put the paper out everyday. journos like adele focus on stories that will win them awards and plenty of headlines. they get a lot of attention and are adept at self-promotion but it’s a mistake to think they attract readers and make a big overall contribution.
that analysis is absurd. James Chessell, one of the AFR’s best read writers, is not even ranked. John Davidson, a hugely popular IT columnist who rates off the charts, is not ranked. ranking on page views and not views/article is good misinformation for gullible critics and competitors.
Hi guys,
We’ve been contacted by another ‘Fairfax insider’ overnight, who threw some light on some of these rankings. See the update.
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
This is hilarious
It wasn’t shared as an “administrative bungle”, it was deliberately shared with the newsroom in a spirit of transparency to help journos make data-led decisions. Anyone in the newsroom with access to Google Analytics can already look this stuff up. To suggest it’s a result of incompetence or error is far off the mark.
It’s also not statistically meaningless to look at page views rather than page views per article. The two ways to get read more are to either produce more stories or to produce stories that get a high number of page views. Both things are valuable in terms of growing an audience.
@Alex, how can the Fairfax insider claim the paper has “influence” when sales are falling faster than a sack of frozen turkeys dropped out of an airplane. According to today ABC’s audit, M-F hard sales are down 7.5% to 56,160 copies and Saturday sales are down 1.3% to 61,911 copies. That’s grim reading. Love the claim “Street Talk is constantly breaking price-sensitive deals”. It should read “Street Talk is constantly breaking UBS press releases.” More to the point, who the hell is Christopher Joye? Neil Chenoweth has an unrivalled ability to peddle mad conspircy theories, but it’s a big claim to allege he has the “ability to break agenda-creating news”. Not even Chen could make this conspiracy fly. Agree that Chanticleer is a good read, however.
Interesting to see the writers often most closely associated with the AFR are not actually very popular with readers. It just shows how insidery Australian media has become. The preoccupation with insiders masquerading as journalists may also explain why paper sales are challenged. Are Fairfax editors spending too much money on writers who don’t resonate with readers and only connect with their peers, eastern suburb school mates and rich bankers. Cronyism, like nepotism, is almost impossible to avoid in any walk of life, but it has never been so blatant in Australian media. Great get Mumbrella. Cheers.
If AFR management did in fact provide this “data” to “inform” writers, then it’s no wonder the AFR is collapsing. Readers respond to stories, not bylines. In fact there is barely any byline recognition in the real world (apart from a scant few and even then only among PRs and media insiders).
Fairfax management has been appalling in its acceptance of traffic measures as a sign of success, driving the increasing tendency toward salacious crap in the metros and the junk, spin and egopap that has taken over the Fin.
Amusing that some of these “stars” are going public with their claims to superiority.
This is truly ridiculous. The list is meaningless. The response is pathetic. Fairfax is a zombie culture these days.
The subscriber pv vs. subscriber pv per post debate reminds me of a time when I saw two bald men arguing over a comb. Is each column 10?