Media Week: Local papers, ripping local yarns
In this week’s column, readership figures show where Adelaide community newspapers are struggling and thriving, old-fashioned reporting of an amazing story, and much more.
News Corp’s “City” rebrand fails to stem losses
After just over a year, News Corp’s rebrand of its excellent City Messenger newspaper appears to be struggling for readers.
The new product, called The City, started up just over a year ago – and readership has gone south, according to Roy Morgan Research released yesterday.
The rebrand of the freebie paper, which now includes much content previously published in The Advertiser, hasn’t stemmed the loss of readers.
In the 24 months to March this year, each edition of The City had 30,000 readers – compared to an average of 35,000 readers in the 24 months to March 2014 (Roy Morgan conducts research over two years for smaller papers to ensure a sufficient sample size).
The City isn’t alone. Most of its stablemate Messenger newspapers also lost readers, with the exceptions of the Weekly Times, Portside Messenger and the Northern Messenger (although the latter is now a combined version of two previous titles).
The overall net loss of readers for all Messenger titles is 1.2 per cent, according to these figures.
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Given that The Advertiser now picks the eyes out of Messenger content via the “integrated” newsroom, perhaps this isn’t surprising. Still, the plucky local papers continue to uncover good grassroots stories, and appear to be performing much better in retaining readers than the Tiser or the Sunday Mail.
Familiar media performer retires
Peter Christopher, for years the voice and face of the Public Sector Association, finishes up today.
Christopher, the PSA’s chief industrial officer, will not disappear from the media altogether after his retirement, promising to remain active in another long-term project – the campaign to preserve the historic clipper ‘City of Adelaide’.
In his time at the PSA, there have been some big battles and changes, including the all-out war declared by unions against former Treasurer Kevin Foley in his attempts to cut budgets and reform conditions in the bureaucracy.
Ironically, a few years later, the Weatherill Government managed to quietly negotiate some of Foley’s reforms.
Christopher will be replaced by Josie Barbaro. PSA general secretary Jan McMahon remains at the top of the union.
Not so grumpy now
In the wake of the deep cuts to TV production in Adelaide, some ABC staff were understandably miffed when star reporter Sarah Ferguson flew into town to conduct a single interview with her own crew in tow, rather than using local ABC operators.
The subject of the lone interview was former Prime Minister Julia Gillard – and the results can be seen in the extraordinary series, The Killing Season, which started on ABC-TV this week.
Stay informed, daily
One of the most obviously brilliant aspects of the three-part series about the Rudd-Gillard battles is the way it is shot, with modern footage melding seamlessly with historic footage.
That’s the work of director of photography Louie Eroglu, who explains how he went about it here.
News Corp scooped on its own leader’s plans
Global media giant News Corp was scooped today on its own leader’s succession planning.
US network CNBC first reported details about Rupert Murdoch’s impending shake-up at the top of his media empire.
Locally, it appears that just about everyone else also beat News to the punch on following up the CNBC break.
You can read full details here, but in summary Murdoch plans to step down as chief executive of 21st Century Fox and hand the role to his son James.
James will handle the day-to-day management of the media corporation. Rupert’s other son Lachlan will be elevated from non-executive co-chairman to executive co-chairman of 21st Century Fox with his father, who remains executive chairman.
Naughty corner
A remote town and a community buckling under enormous (and multi-generational) social pressures? It must be entirely the school’s fault. This Today Tonight shocker about a remote NSW school isn’t new – as this 2013 story shows. Get some more balance here.
Top of the class
The Courier, based in Mt Barker, is an old-school newspaper with traditional values.
In the hands of many other media organisations, its front-page story this week would have been given the full, gruesome clickbait treatment.
However, in the hands of reporter Natalie Koufos, it was presented without sensationalism, editorialising or judgment. And what a story it is.
A Hills teenager, Molly Acton, gave birth to a baby in the Mt Barker McDonald’s. She didn’t know she was pregnant – she felt unwell and then went into labor. Her mother Helen wasn’t far away, getting her hair done at a local salon. After an urgent call from Molly, Helen raced to her daughter to help deliver a healthy baby boy. Helen is a midwife.
There’s a summary here – but you need to buy the paper to get the full story.
Media Week is published on Fridays.
