Media
Mercury: Tasmanian Government to approach News Ltd. Margaretta Pos …
THE Tasmanian Government has vowed to go directly to News Ltd bosses in a bid to stop plans to take the editing of Hobart’s Mercury newspaper offshore.
Tasmanian Economic Development Minister David O’Byrne told a boisterous rally of about 300 people at Parliament House lawns in Hobart yesterday that he wanted to speak with News Ltd in Sydney to plead with them to stop the export of Tasmanian jobs.
Mr O’Byrne, armed with a plan to keep the Mercury independent of interstate subbing hubs, said he was writing a letter to News Ltd chief executive John Hartigan to request a meeting.
“The Tasmanian Government is fully behind this campaign,” Mr O’Byrne told the rally.
Mr O’Byrne, who is also Tasmanian Workplace Relations Minister, said he was angry at plans to axe local Mercury sub-editors and would do all he could to convince News Ltd to abandon moves to take their jobs offshore.
What Margaretta Pos said:
Save the Mercury Rally
7th April 2011
Margaretta Pos
Tasmania is not important in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and with rare exceptions – such as the invasion of Iraq – the Mercury is left alone. It’s a softer glove, with less local content and more syndicated copy. The bottom line is money, which is why sub editors will be sacked here and their work done in Melbourne.
It’s sub-editors now; it will be reporters next, and before long, a once proud newspaper started by John Davies – an ex convict, a Jew, and whose brother was hanged as a bushranger – will inevitably be reduced to a few pages written in a branch office. Just as the Derwent Gazette is to the Mercury now, so the Mercury will become to Melbourne’s Herald-Sun.
I spent 21 years working for the Mercury, from February 1985 to February 2006, as a general reporter and arts writer. It was my hope to become the first arts editor. It didn’t happen. Despite the astonishing level of cultural activity in Tasmania, quite apart from the opening of MONA, the paper still doesn’t have one.
The Mercury has plenty of critics, and often with good reason. But it’s not often the fault of reporters, sub-editors, artists or photographers. A newspaper office is like a ship and the editor is like the ship’s captain; he is a law unto himself – unless he loses money.
Right now, we have an editor who is paving the way for the bean counters. Staff say he initiated the process, one that coincides with News Ltd’s bigger picture. The future of newspapers is in question, but in whatever forms in future, online or print, a good newspaper will have a good readership. And a good editor would fight for his staff and the quality of his paper.
I left the Mercury because I was unhappy. Disillusioned. Despondent. The paper was being dumbed down. Staff morale was low. It’s the same editor now as then. So why do I want to save the Mercury? Because it’s worth saving and it’s got some good journos working for it. The thing about being a journo, is that we love what we do. It’s a passion.
What the Mercury needs is leadership; a big minded editor who will fight to make it worth keeping, worth buying. But seeing you standing here, opposed to the plan to edit the paper interstate, maybe there is a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the Mercury can be what it should be. Perhaps its journalists will make a difference. Today, and in the past few weeks, you have risked your jobs to defy News Ltd management.
Journalists have made a stand and it’s in the interests of all Tasmanians to stand beside them.
• And, Hag: Is Sue Neales leaving? Staggering around the fringes of yesterday’s parliament lawns rally Hag was told the Mercury’s shining light Sue Neales was leaving the Merc. Oh Sue, Say it isn’t true … PS: I also heard regular politics writer Damien Brown was off to the ABC. Who is going to re-arrange the deckchairs?, Hag asks herself.
Earlier on Tasmanian Times:
Protest over paper cuts
Tasmanian Government joins Mercury fight
Mercury in the Senate
Mercury Rising
Mercury jobs on the line. Art Deco Facade to be sold
Save Our Mercury
A Fly on The Wall: Behind the Art Deco Facade
Journos’ fury as Mercury, Voice of Tasmania, outsources editing to Melbourne
• Guardian: Sorry is the hardest word
Rupert Murdoch’s News International has issued a public apology to eight victims of phone hacking, including Sienna Miller and Tessa Jowell, and admitted for the first time that the practice was rife at the News of the World.
In a move likely to cost the company many millions of pounds, it said it would offer compensation to some of the 24 high-profile figures who have started legal proceedings against the paper in the high court for breach of privacy. It also admitted its previous investigations into hacking had not been “sufficiently robust”.
The unprecedented statement of contrition is a remarkable volte face for the country’s most powerful news organisation, which was claiming until the start of this year, in the face of growing evidence to the contrary, that hacking was the work of a single reporter.
It comes as a Scotland Yard investigation into phone hacking gathers pace. The News of the World’s chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, was questioned by police on Tuesday along with Ian Edmondson, who was sacked as associate editor (news) in January.
…
Andrew Neil, an ex-Murdoch executive who edited the Sunday Times for a decade, said: “This is one of the most embarrassing apologies I’ve ever seen from a major British corporation. I don’t think NI had anywhere else to go. The evidence was piling up against them. It may cost them a lot more than they think. There are plenty of other people involved. They are trying to close it down with their chequebook but I don’t think they’re going to succeed.”