The Australian media industry giant Fairfax (and its small but dangerous New Zealand subsidiary) is facing an unprecedented shake-up following the decision to axe 1,900 staff, close two major printing presses and downsize its flagship newspapers to tabloids.
We here at Lauda Finem predicted this catastrophy in September last year, our post, PHIL KITCHIN AND FAIRFAX, A HISTORY OF FAILURE. The writing, so to speak, has long been on the wall. Fairfax and many of the other owners of newsprint mastheads, APN being one, are clearly on their way to becoming totally redundant, along with Fairfax’s unfortunately soon to be redundant innocents; the real trades men and women of Australia.
The CEO and directors of course have pointed the finger at the changing media landscape and the growth of the internet for its woes. However they have failed to acknowledge their own part in the problem; being their failure to act on the inevitable and a loss in their readership’s faith in their ability to accurately report the news; preferring instead to print shit that is far removed from anything resembling the truth, pushed out by lazy over paid hacks and signed off by editors that have little nose or even the skill to recognise a good story or for that matter the truth, even if it hit them in the face with a fucking sledge hammer.
Sludge and hyperbole have become the order of the day, flogging poor imitations of what might once have been called news papers with misleading headlines designed to fool the gullible news hungry public, behind which hide stories with little if any real substance or more often than not truth.
Then of course there has been the problem of a growing culture of cock sureness amongst it’s editorial staff, a problem especially evident in Fairfax’s New Zealand mast head’s, and therein lays the company’s next error of judgement, a rather big mistake. The corporate elite at Fairfax have recently announced the transfer of Australian editing jobs to its New Zealand subsidiary.
Once this, the company’s latest, folly has been completed Australians may as well forget Fairfax as a serious contender in reporting real stories. Once the bevy of Kiwi editors get their hands on our news there will be a complete change. The brash no holes barred in your face Australian style of investigative journalism will be relegated to history.
Fairfax New Zealand, its journalists, editors and management have a long history of getting it wrong. Some of the more glaring examples of incompetence being found in the overpriced acquisition of the website www.trademe.co.nz and the McManus and Berryman founded shite sheet The Independent (the Indy).
Of course when Fairfax acquired the Indy, as it was colloquially known, they also extended the Fairfax’s depth of incompetence having also inherited hack journalists such as Jenni McManus, Fiona Rotherham and Cameron Bates and their unique and poisonous style; a cancer which soon spread throughout Fairfax’s New Zealand operation.
This New Zealand born culture is what has historically robbed Fairfax’s shareholders and it seems that the cancer is now about to spread to the company’s Australian operations with the loss of our editors jobs to the third world where corruption is rampant and more importantly often concealed and or acquiesced to by New Zealands unique brand of home grown hacks and editors in their Machiavellian race to the top of a foul smelling political dung heap.
We’re of the view that Fairfax only have their decisions in and around New Zealand to blame for their current predicament and the continued rush to the bottom of that Kiwi barrel, a barrel loaded with rotten apples, will simply expedite the company’s complete demise.
Lets hope that Gina Rinehart, having been a victim, is smart enough to recognise horse shit when its printed. If she is, she’ll no doubt soon be lopping off the heads of those responsible for it.
In the mean time Australian jobs are soon to be heading south (east), whilst New Zealand’s rotten apples are heading in the opposite direction. Its time for all Australians to take a stand against the cheddar munching fuckwit’s who are arriving on our shores taking our jobs and our way of life and coveting Centrelink benefits; having themselves created the problem, by electing successive home grown corrupt governments, that have totally fucked Thomas Bracken‘s precious GODZONE.
Australian Broadcasting Corporations: Media in turmoil – Live blog, Day 2
Related articles
- Fairfax says cuts won’t affect New Zealand jobs (NZ Herald)
- Fairfax Media to shed 1,900 jobs over 3 years (sfgate.com)
- Rinehart ally backs move to ditch Fairfax charter (smh.com.au)
- Fairfax to shrink jobs, newspapers (smh.com.au)
- Fairfax Australia ‘reviewing’ outsourcing decision (radionz.co.nz)
- Australian publisher Fairfax to shed 1,900 jobs – a fifth of staff – over 3 years (vancouverdesi.com)
- Union told to expect Fairfax redundancies within 60 to 90 days (mumbrella.com.au)
- Fairfax journalists go on strike over plans to shift regional paper production to NZ (mumbrella.com.au)
1 Comment
Fairfax for many many years have lacked vision..Way too much politics in the company for anything to work well.