To say that reporting standards at Fairfax have deteriorated is to state the obvious. With perhaps the exception of The Australian Financial Review, which we’ll let slide for now, most of the ‘Business’ content on The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and equivalent mastheads around the country is written by 22-year olds with degrees in click baiting. I don’t even log in anymore, despite having a paid subscription. Steve installed a site-blocking program on his computer specifically to stop himself visiting the SMH site. That’s what I’d call a customer problem!
Readers like Steve and I are, no doubt, no longer the target market. So I guess it’s no surprise that one of the few remaining high quality biz journalists got the boot on Friday. The journalism that Michael West practices, or practiced, is the sort that requires resources, including lawyers. But it’s also one of the few reasons to bother reading.
Last day today. Told my skill-set not aligned with Fairfax strategy going forward. #sacked
— Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) May 13, 2016
Best of luck Westy, wherever you end up next.
Perhaps Steve can follow up with a part 2 to this post, explaining how to install siteblocker software.
It appears Fairfax’s strategy going forward is soft-touch journalism that doesn’t piss off the advertisers. Any wonder old media is dying.
I used to be a fan of Michael since the Australian, and he did do groundwork with contacts. However I turned off him the past few years as he let his agendas/bias dictate his stories, instead of remaining objective. Unfortunately it coloured his reporting. (You can keep reading News for biased perspectives!)
A touching tribute to Mr West but you appear not to read his work as you’ve blocked all access to the SMH where his work appeared. Best to stick to Dick Smith-type analysis.
I’ll have to look up the latest definition of cynicism again in the dictionary!! The last time I looked it said something like ‘sounds profound but achieves little!’
Steve has blocked his own access to SMH. Gareth is the author of this article, whom I presume has not blocked himself from accessing the SMH.
Is English your first language? He said, “I don’t even log in anymore, despite having a paid subscription.”
English is only my third language, but I can still pick up misdirection which people tend to try when they’ve made an embarrassing mistake they’re trying to move on from. Trump does this all the time. It usually starts with an insult aimed to belittle others – or in this case, is an attempted insult, “Is English your first language?”.
Then, then after trying to put the person down, move on from the previous mistake by introducing a new element to your case not raised previously, while completely ignoring the error just pointed out to you.
Your original comment referred to blocking, which was what I commented on: “A touching tribute to Mr West but you appear not to read his work as you’ve blocked all access to the SMH where his work appeared”.
Not a great attempt at misdirection here, I’d say Trump does a much better job at it.
Apologies for any confusion here. I read most of what Michael West wrote, and Ross Gittins, Adele Ferguson, a bit of Pascoe and a few others. I try my best to avoid most of the rest but, like most, I’m not immune to click bait. Avoiding the main site and not logging in helps cut down that time wastage. Although we have a subscription and get the hard copy too, I source most of the articles from those journos I like through twitter nowadays, and I’m generally immune from Fairfax’s 10 free articles per month limit because I’m on VPN much of the time. But it’s getting to the stage where 10 articles a month is more than enough anyway.
Michael West was one of the few remaining reasons to read The AGE. I’m not sure where Fairfax thinks this is heading, but reprinting press releases is not a sustainable business model.
Yes, I agree Gareth. The SMH’s Business section will be much poorer without his reporting.
Clearly Fairfax is in strife and much of the blame I would put down to the very strident political leaning to the left which they have taken which all too often doesn’t allow the best sort of reporting – which is the good old fashioned ‘objective’ stuff that calls it as it sees it.
So, it’s a pity good reporters like Michael West, lose out.
Check out work at The Australian Michael, if Robert Gottliebsen is indicative of the standard they are aiming for.
Unfortunately Michael focused his last 2 years on attempting to reveal tax avoidance with a limited degree of success and arguments that changed weekly. No big loss
I am really disappointed in the clickbait. It drives me nuts and just sends me to the free sites. The clickbait is starting to find its way into the AFR too. Things look very grim for Fairfax when there are free competitors offering similar stuff.
I also happily subscribe to the Financial Times website because I think the content is usually very high quality. Its too late now but I do wonder what might have been had Fairfax gone down that route.