Media Week: Manners, ESP, newspaper readership
In this week’s column, newspaper readership falls, how the media is fuelling a resurgence in the women’s movement, some thoughts on “rude” ABC interviewers, magazine readership stats and much more.
Back with a vengeance
After decades advocating for women’s rights, Anne Summers says she is heartened by the fact that a powerful, strong and gutsy women’s media exists in Australia today.
“What I think is quite remarkable at the moment, in 2015, is that we have two daily newsletters that write about nothing but women’s issues from a feminist point of view: Women’s Agenda and Daily Life,” she told a Women in Media South Australia event at the Lyceum Club this week.
She rejected the suggestion that such outlets might be seen as a contemporary version of the old women’s pages once filled with recipes and home hints, saying the difference was in their strong feminist approach.
“I don’t see them as women’s pages – I think they are fantastic sources of information, inspiration and aspiration.”
Summers – who publishes her own digital magazine, Anne Summers Reports, and also has a regular Fairfax column – said the fact that publications were fighting to secure the top feminist columnists showed there was now a large market for their ideas.
She suggested it was evidence of a resurgence of strength in the women’s movement after something of a lull following the 1970s and ’80s.
“We’re back with an absolute vengeance. And there’s a huge number of issues to be discussed and people willing to discuss them; you just can’t stop the conversation.”
The SA chapter of Women in Media was launched in February and is a mentoring and networking initiative of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
– Suzie Keen
Miss Manners
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There is no question that ABC 891’s breakfast duo, Matt Abraham and David Bevan, push the limits in their interviewing style, particularly when it comes to politicians.
They are often aggressive and, by normal conversational standards, sometimes rude.
Abraham argued on air this week that he and Bevan engage in accountability journalism – the practice of ensuring our elected representatives, in particular, are held to account, and rigorously so.
They annoy some readers (and many politicians) with this approach – but not too many, clearly, given their long-standing position at the top of the breakfast radio ratings. Their methods are also successful in eliciting actual information from the tight grip of the state.
On Saturday, Advertiser columnist and former radio announcer Amanda Blair singled the pair out for criticism in a piece about the decline in manners and respect for our political leaders. In particular, she slammed the ABC pair for allegedly questioning the fitness of Premier Jay Weatherill to hold office (it was a line in an interview about the Chloe Valentine child protection failure – Abraham and Bevan have a different interpretation).
Blair herself wrote about child protection a year ago, in an excoriating piece about Danyse Soester – who isn’t a politician, but a mother who once sat on the governing council of the school at the centre of the Debelle Royal Commission.
Soester gained quite a public profile with her unrelenting criticism of the Government for failing to inform parents at the school about the charging of an out of school care worker for the sexual abuse of a child in his care.
Blair led off her column thus: “I’ve wanted to say this for a long time. Shut up, Danyse Soester.”
She followed it up with a withering attack including describing Soester as a “blow-up doll inflated at every media opportunity by the likes of Nick Xenophon and shadow education minister David Pisoni who are clearly using her to further their own political agendas.”
The final coup de grace was a few paragraphs about Soester’s candidacy for the suburban Adelaide seat of Wright: “Blow your whistle here, Danyse, in the suburbs where evil lives … go on … blow.”
“Rude” doesn’t begin to describe it.
If Abraham or Bevan said anything remotely similar to this on air, they would likely be sacked.
The Advertiser loses readers
The Advertiser has increased its digital readership but not by enough to make up for plummeting print readership, according to Roy Morgan newspaper readership research out today.
The research shows that Rupert Murdoch’s Adelaide operation has lost 4.3 per cent of readers over the 12 months to March.
The seven-day readership of The Advertiser website and apps increased from 455,000 to 502,000 over the period, but this was more than offset by free-falling print readership for News Corp’s local titles, down from 775,000 to 671,000.
News Corp would be very concerned about the performance of its weekend print products. Readership of the Saturday Advertiser dropped nearly 100,000 readers over the year – from 488,000 to 391,000. The Sunday Mail didn’t fare much better, bleeding readers to drop from 529,000 in 2014 to 447,000 in the most recent survey.
Food and fitness lead the mag pack
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Magazine readership figures out today show the best performers were titles focused on food, entertainment, home and garden and specialty motorcycle mags.
However, the best performing magazine in Australia wasn’t in any of these categories, according to Roy Morgan research.
Women’s Fitness led the pack with a readership increase of 27.4 per cent – massive vindication for Citrus Media which brought the title back to life after it was axed by Bauer. Women’s Health and Fitness also grew strongly, up 19.1 per cent.
Relatively new food title Taste.com.au also grew strongly to overtake old favourite Delicious.
A majority of titles increased their digital audience, with traditional titles Cosmopolitan, Time, Reader’s Digest and Gourmet Traveller now enjoying digital readerships almost as big as their print readership.
The most-read paid for title in Australia remains Better Homes & Gardens.
Chief Justice at the press club
Chief Justice Chris Kourakis will be appearing at the SA Press Club next Thursday (14 May).
The lunch will be held at the Hotel Grand Chancellor on Hindley Street and is open to everyone.
As well as hearing Kourakis’ thoughts on our justice and courts systems, you’ll be able to observe the local press in action during question time (and maybe ask a question yourself).
For details and bookings, go here.
Naughty corner
What a strange spectacle of group bullying we saw this week of the producers of SBS documentary series Struggle Street.
The series, set in the western suburbs of Sydney, was widely attacked by locals and the media for being “poverty porn” and showing contempt for salt of the earth Aussies.
The criticism, which ironically veered into crass and overly personal class politics, was based on a promo – not the show itself. Either the critics have ESP or they were simply piling in on a public broadcaster for sport.
Once the show aired, it was widely lauded as an excellent and sensitive piece of television.
In Adelaide, The Advertiser joined in the witch-hunt led by its News Corp colleagues interstate.
It managed to get mayors from three “less affluent” areas to say they would be horrified if the show they hadn’t yet seen had been made in their patch.
Unsurprisingly, Struggle Street was a ratings hit.
Top of the class
The ABC’s Four Corners again wins the week, with Caro Meldrum-Hanna’s expose of worker exploitation in Australia’s fresh food industry. South Australian businesses were featured – including one who is doing the right thing.
