Helen McCabe quits as editor-in-chief of the Australian Women’s Weekly after six years
Helen McCabe has resigned as the editor-in-chief of The Australian Women’s Weekly after six years at the helm of the country’s most influential magazine.
McCabe: resigned as Australian Women’s Weekly editor
McCabe joined The Weekly in 2009 from the Sunday Telegraph and refocused the title on harder news which helped the women’s mag land a series of exclusive front covers and stories including last year’s exclusive with Oprah Winfrey.
It also ensured the magazine was regularly in the headlines, notably with a controversial cover of then Prime Minister Julia Gillard knitting a woollen kangaroo.
Hmmmmm, did she quit, or was she pushed?
Farewell Helen,
I enjoyed your political stories and often caught senior males executive telling me information that was only found in the woman’s weekly.
All the best in your next job.
There was a time when the AWW was one of the great magazines of the world. Changes to its direction in the 1980s almost killed it of. McCabe gave the impression she wanted to recapture the old magic. Sadly she never was game enough to embrace the old successful content and settled for something less. But she did produce something of greater quality than what has been dished up over the past 3 decades.
The circ and readership declines would have been far more severe without Helen. Bauer is truely an odd animal these days. Rudderless.
Helen did a fantastic job at AWW when you look at overall quality of content and leadership of the category – but circulation was never going to grow while AWW remained a ‘quality’ title in this space. As we have often seen in the past, Bauer has unrealistic expectations about what can be properly achieved in the magazine space while retaining the ‘quality’ which readers and advertisers value. McCabe made AWW the best it’s been for a long time, and in the days of Kerry Packer that would have been enough for starters, but not for Bauer. There may well be ways to turn AWW circ around but those ways would basically stop it from being AWW. The announcement and ‘gardening leave’ are highly reminiscent of other senior Bauer exits over recent years, where editors and publishers are told “time to go” and given a bonus of varying sorts (payment, ‘editor at large’ title with open brief and light deadlines/expectations, or six months full pay) to go without fuss.
Good innings in a tough industry
Congratulations Helen! You did an amazing job.
Definitely time for a new editor. Wonder who it might be…?
Plenty of good names already being tossed about, I’d suggest Marina Goh should be high on any list.