Fairfax’s Sun-Herald loses 100,000 sales while video streams and page impressions fall

The problem is, the paper just isn’t very good. Its attempt at light, easy and racey is out-tabloided by the News Ltd offering — they do this sort of thing once a week — and its supplements have absolutely no appeal to anyone with a Y chromosome.

I bought the staff rate Fairfax shares in 1992 at $1.11, so as a Fairfax shareholder I’m “not happy Jan”

That’s what happens when you join Murdoch in a race to the bottom.

What the Australian market needs is quality newspaper journalism, not more Murdoch style rubbish.

It’s too dense a read for a Sunday. Way too many columnists saying the same old safe, tired, PC commentary (desperately need new writers). The mag in the middle has been reduced to tattle. And Fairfax, maybe no one simply cares anymore about your benign, left-leaning agenda. Just sayin’.

Your Mumbrella e-mail yelled ‘Herald Sun sales crash’.
Yet the story was about the ‘Sun-Herald’ Big difference between the two. Probably requires a Mumbrella apology.

Can Fairfax get it right on anything? This week they merged the Melbourne Weekly titles into Review Weekly – for which they paid $67 million only a few years ago.

Ashley —
I bought staff Fairfax shares at $4.80 in 2000 — and for many years after at not much less.
I’m even unhappier, Jan!

WD is right in suggesting there are too many columnists saying nothing new in the Sun-Herald. If the paper had decent editing and sub editing that problem would have been fixed years ago.
However WD is totally wrong in suggesting the paper has a left-leaning agenda. The paper runs a right of centre agenda, not as far right as the Sunday Telegraph, but right of centre never the less.
The sad truth is over the past three decades the paper has been edited to make the reporters happy. Before then it used to be edited for the reader.

Anyone would think you’d outsourced your sub-editing ; )

(edited by mumbrella) Fairfax in general have lost the plot … it’s like the American strategy during the Vietnam war: “We had to burn the village to save it.” You can’t help but wonder if it’s that must different over at News, but at least they have the Rupert-like rat cunning to not boast about their disasters. Can someone ask Chairman Kim how many editorial hacks have been asked to take the long walk into oblivion as (edited by Mumbrella) have toured the far flung provinces in recent weeks? Bet they don’t say but it rumoured to be well into three figures … with more to come.

@ Lindsay. I probably meant Fairfax as a whole had lurched to the left. Take arguably the two biggest “issues” in the country at the moment – the carbon tax and boat people. It’s pro both, if it’s covered at all. If I’m not mistaken, but 60-odd% of Australians are opposed to the carbon tax and something like 90% want tighter border controls. Like it or not, but we choose media that reflects our own opinions. And, hence, why Fairfax is making itself irrelevant (not that Gina’s the answer, mind.)

Sorry WD I do not think you are right on your understanding of the political left or right. However my memory is that the bulk of the population want on shore processing. Regardless of that, I can not see how any of the policies relating to our borders are either left or right. It is a security issue. But Labor and Liberal are very close in what they are suggesting should be done with boat people.
Nor do I see how it is possible to make the carbon tax (or global warming) left or right. But if you look at the history of putting a price on carbon, it was the Liberal Party that first adopted that policy. Labor was much slower off the mark. Both Labor and Liberal have the same carbon reduction target, and the popularity of putting a price on carbon was very high a few years back.
Also News Limited has done far more in reducing their own carbon pollution than Fairfax has done while their editorial policies are totally irrational.

Fairfax getting a real caning on Mumbrella last few weeks …

I picked up the Sun-Herald last week for the first time in 10 years and could not get over two things. The first was the layout (it was frightened of itself) and second at times I thought I was reading the Financial Review – it was just as boring. I remember when the Sun Herald screamed “read me” but now it whimpers “would you like to read me?”

I stopped reading the SMH ages ago because of its left-leaning, PC tripe.

The problems at Fairfax are not political. It is their inability of knowing what is news. They seem to think trivia is substance. None of the changes they have made over recent times suggest things will change anytime soon.

As a prelude to digital subscriptions next year, are there any figures for how many of the 364,401 users of the SMH iPad app have registered for a Fairfax account to enable them to see restricted content like ‘The Sydney Magazine’ for free?

As a Fairfax subscriber the radical change to the layout turned a readable paper into an absolute mess with a mass of journalist’s opinion pieces. All the layout change did was accelerate readership decline. A quality Sunday paper with less journalist opinion pieces and some hard journalism may be worth reading but when subscriptions come up afraid it is nolonger worth the money. With the current Fairfax Board not having a clue about journalism it can only decline. Sad.