SMH journalists to question management about UTS paid liftout
Fairfax is again facing questions about its labelling of advertorial content with journalists at The Sydney Morning Herald understood to be questioning management about the online declarations of a paid liftout for University of Technology Sydney (UTS).
Yesterday UTS paid The Sydney Morning Herald to distribute copies of their 8 page magazine Brink. As part of the deal the content, largely authored by former Herald journalist Wendy Frew, was also published on the SMH website under the label “Content by UTS”, with a publishing credit at the end of the piece.
Mumbrella understands the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, the union which represents journalists, is set to raise concerns with management about the paid content and its labelling with a number of journalists concerned “Content by X” may become a new standard as Fairfax moves to expand its branded content offering.
Fairfax boss Greg Hywood recently flagged the media company would be expanding its content marketing offering and yesterday announced the promotion of Simon Smith as managing director of Fairfax Content Marketing.
Typical MEAA. Fiddle while Rome burns.
and yet the MEAA is the first to express outrage when journalists lose jobs as newspaper revenues run dry. Wake up, and get a grip on what’s happening in the real world.
in 2013 I find these concerns so yesterday. Haven seen the content it is clearly labelled as content by and from UTS, so what is the issue? Independence Always is key and a core to Fairfax but executions of this nature are normal and have been happening for many many years, why the concern?
There is a big difference between paid ads and news articles. The UTS content is PAID content. It should not be put on the SMH website as news.
“This story written and produced by the University of Technology, Sydney, for Brink, a publication distributed monthly in The Sydney Morning Herald.” – How does that not explain that Fairfax was paid??? #firstworldproblems
The union should be more worred that Brink was the best part of Thursday’s paper.
This exactly why Fairfax cannot suceed as a content marketer while simultaneously trumpeting its ‘independence’
Times must be tough for Fairfax if they’re accepting paid content from UTS.
Can’t the union find a real fight to pick? Is it really the end of journalism as we know it? No. So move on!
Happy to be proven wrong but my gut feeling is noone reads Brink, it’s a huge waste of UTS’ money. If anyone’s worried about it, it should be them for the massive outlay for nothing!
Stir Fry, summed it. MEAA = irrelevant in 2013
A strategic move by UTS cashing in on the herald redundancies and using ex-herald staff to write these stories which read more like advertorials.
So much for an ‘independent’ publication.
Student newspapers have come a long way. In the 1980s when I was editor of the student paper at Canberra University we brokered a deal with the boss of the Queanbeyan newspaper for cheap printing. We did the distribution ourselves. Now uni papers are being published as supplements by the big boys.
The MEAA isn’t known as the “clown’s union” for any other reason than under siege print journalists are just another group in its eclectic membership – unemployed actors and performers, including clowns and jugglers, are also in there somewhere. When I took an inevitable redundancy from a major print concern a few years back the MEAA’s help amounted to “well, you’ve had a good go” – the implication being they didn’t give a rat’s. That’s what 30 plus years of paying dues got me.
“The Sydney Morning Herald understood to be questioning management about a recent the online declarations of a paid liftout for University of Technology Sydney (UTS).”
Looks like a typo…