The compact comes of ‘Age’, but the real fight for Fairfax is scooping digital eyeballs

Fairfax launched its new compact size in a week where Victorian politics dominated the national agenda, making it a very good time to consider just how Melbourne’s former broadsheet, The Age, fared with its now similarly sized competitor, the Herald Sun.

The re-launch of The Age as a compact was never about being the biggest selling newspaper in Melbourne. There’s no way The Age can compete with the genuinely tabloid Herald Sun.

The Herald Sun is a modern giant among Australian newspapers: its audited Monday to Saturday circulation hovers around the 450,000 mark. That adds up to more than a million readers every weekday.

The Age sells roughly one-third: Monday to Friday (157,000) and about half (227,000) on Saturday. Readership is about half too: 566,000 Monday—Friday and 720,000 on Saturdays, according to Audit Bureau figures.

So the driver of this week’s move was re-attaching Age readers who’ve let their subscription lapse, or who hated the unwieldy broadsheet.

Judging a book by its cover: Did The Age get it right on day one?

The first thing I noticed this morning at my newsagent in Melbourne’s leafy eastern suburbs is that the pile of Herald-Suns is twice as high as the pile of The Age. So the first comparison is easy.

Even in this relatively affluent suburb, the newsagent expects to sell more Herald-Suns than copies of The Age.

The second comparison is also easy and perhaps explains the first: the Herald-Sun is $1.20 and The Age is $2.00. Price-conscious newspaper buyers will probably prefer the cheaper product.

The canny Herald-Sun buyer also gets more bang for their buck-twenty. The Murdoch ‘tabloid’ has 80 pages and the Fairfax Media ‘compact’ has 72, plus a 16 page insert that is numbered differently.

But how do you tell a tabloid from a compact? It’s not that easy because technically they are the same size: 30X40 centimetres.

Perhaps it’s in the layout and use of colour on the front page.

The Age has retained its signature royal blue, but the masthead is superimposed reverse in white on blue. The Herald-Sun uses a verdant green and a superimpose/reverse white, but it’s masthead block is deeper coming 14 centimetres down the page. The Age masthead is a shallow nine centimetres.

The Herald-Sun also uses its masthead to promote a “Superstar Footy DVD” give-away and incorporates action pics of two AFL stars who I don’t recognize, but who I’m sure would be very familiar to Aussie Rules fans.

As you would expect the Herald-Sun has a brighter more ‘tabloid’ front page with a bold headline in four centimeter solid capital letters: “SECRET TAPES BOMBSHELL”        . Over the top of that is a white-on-red banner also in heavy caps: “POLICE CRISIS ROCKS GOVERNMENT”. Just below the headline is a series of three ‘pointers’ also in block caps: “KEY STAFFER PAID $22,500”; “JOB HELP AT ODDS WITH PREMIER”; “BAILLIEU ADVISTER SLAMS DEJPUTY PREMIER”.

The kicker is that readers are invited to “Now listen to the recordings heraldsun.com.au”

The copy itself, across five columns is about 350 words and the story is continued across four pages (4-7) inside.

At the bottom of the page there’s three ‘skybox’ promos for contents inside the paper. This is a great tabloid front page and if you were buying the paper on its shelf-appeal, you would probably go for The Herald-Sun.

By contrast The Age seems dull, if worthy.

Saurons of cinema: Gobbits and Quislings in a tale of ‘yore

The drafty Stalinesque lecture hall underneath Auckland’s trade union headquarters in Grey Lynn was a fitting stage for the evening of ‘serious fun’ and ribald politics, earlier this week, when Warner Brothers won the despised and coveted Roger Award for the worst transnational operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

It was fitting that the gun-running, racist lackey Bugs Bunny was on hand to accept the Roger on behalf of his bosses.

Bugs Bunny takes home the Roger for God-knows-what nefarious doings. Photo Nigel Mofiet

King of the Gobbits, Paul Holmes and Hollywood don’t give a shit: actors are people too

You know there’s one very good reason why New Zealand standards of living will never match Australia. His name is Paul Holmes.

He is the new poison dwarf in the Gobbit story. If this is an example of what the PD actually cares about then he is, indeed, a shallow little wanker.

“Man, I’m angry. Angry that a group of gullible actors have allowed themselves to be used by some bolshy left-wing filth from Australia who may or may not simply want to get The Hobbit filmed over there.”

So Australian unionists like Simon Whipp are “bolshy left-wing filth” are they Paul? Well the strength and success of the Australian union movement is actually one reason why Australian wages are higher, there’s better superannuation for “Aussie filth” and working conditions are not like some of the third-world standards that Kiwi workers have to put up with.

But, wait a minute: what the fuck would you know about the working conditions for ordinary Kiwis – in the film industry or anywhere else? Oh, that’s right, fuck all!

You have a very privileged life, well-paid, well-watered, well-fed and able to do pretty much whatever you fucking please. You got that way because you are a willing mouthspeak for vested interests and a political water-boy for the National Party.

I also think I’ve found the “smoking gun” — there is a conspiracy to break Actors’ Equity in New Zealand and destroy the film industry unions who keep demanding a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work…as partial proof I offer this:

Hollywood writers and actors are notorious for decrying money, wealth, profit, as corrupters of art, integrity, and morality. But let them see a wealthy producer, and suddenly they too want wealth–the producer’s wealth.

You will have to take the jump to find the source of this quote.

John the Gollum, Lord Porkpie and the ignorance of stupid Gobbits

My tweet today after hearing about the union-busting actions of ill-informed Kiwi actors protesting against a pay rise for working on Lord Porkpie Jackoff’s blub-buster re-hash of a boring old story by some dead white male English fart: The Gobbit

Aussie-bashing, union-bashing stupid hobbit scab gits, Eff-off back to Hobiton and live on scraps from Sir Peter’s well-lardered table.

Seriously, I can’t just let this stuff go by without comment. I need to get this off my chest. Let me tell a little story…

A day of irony, intrigue and outrage: SFC, NBR, SFO, “WTF?”

Funny things coincidences, they tend to happen when you least expect it.

So today, coincidentally, New Zealand is in the top ten in the global media freedom index sponsored by Reporters Without Borders and today, co-coincidentally, the National Business Review has been bullied into handing over files, notes, documents and recordings to the Serious Fraud Office under threat of draconian fines and expensive legal hassles.

If the SFO knows about any incriminating documents NBR journalist Matt Nippert may have received from his sources, surely the nation’s premiere business crime unit could go to the South Canterbury Finance principals and others involved in the investigation and just ask for them.

Or, perhaps issue a warrant to search premises where originals or copies might be stored. It’s not a good look for the SFO to be standing over journalists just trying to do their jobs, rather than investigating the source of the alleged wrong-doing.

An intriguing thing media freedom: you don’t really know you had it until someone tries to take it away.

It’s an outrage that we pat ourselves on the back with one hand and poke out our own eyes with a burnt stick at the same time.

The intimidation of NBR is a salutory reminder that there are no shield laws in New Zealand and that the ethical principle of source confidentiality – for the protection of journalists and whistleblowers – is trumped by the law.

This is an ethico-legal paradox that won’t go away without some legislative fix. I don’t think shield laws solve all such problems, but well drafted and implemented they can be part of the protection that journalists need to do good investigative work like Matt’s done on the South Canterbury / Hyatt Regency hotel story so far.

I think the situation is paraphrased nicely in this quote from Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-Francois Julliard:

“The defence of media freedom continues to be a battle, a battle of vigilance in the democracies of old Europe and a battle against oppression and injustice in the totalitarian regimes still scattered across the globe.”

I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that New Zealand is a totalitarian regime along the lines of, say, Fiji or Burma, for example, but the chilling effect of the threats against Matt Nippert, Nevil Gibson and the NBR are only a velvet glove away from the iron fist.

We always have to be on guard against police and thieves.

Paul Henry’s resignation an anti-climax

Well, Paul Henry resigned on Sunday afternoon. The public pressure and an ominous warning yesterday from his boss Rick Ellis were apparently enough to shift Henry into proactive mode.

I was a bit surprised. I thought he’d tough it out and I wasn’t sure Rick Ellis would carry through his sack Henry option. But maybe, just maybe, Henry now exits with a modicum of his dignity intact.

[Sunday nightcap]

I’d also just like to acknowledge Paul Holmes’ column from the HoS today. It never appears online, but Paul H[olmes] did a good job of treading a fine line between the rat who took his mate’s gig and the consoling mate who thinks his first-namesake is actually a good bloke under all that hardening slime.

I was tempted to say that under no circumstances could I take a man’s programme when he was experiencing bad times and I would never forgive someone doing it to me but then I thought, well, what the hell, what could I do but accept? [HoS 10.10.10 p.41]

Well Paul, you could show some principles and act in solidarity with a mate “experiencing bad times”. That’s what a mate would do. Unlike that “certain crowd” who kick a mate when he’s down.

There is a certain crowd who will love to pull him down because he is simply too successful. This is the schadenfreude factor and it is very powerful.

Schadenfreude is taking delight in another’s misfortune. It is a fancy way of talking about the so-called tall poppy syndrome. It’s nonsense.

Henry fcuked up and exposed his inner gremlins; he wasn’t torn down, he self-immolated after pouring petrol over his head for some time and playing with matches.

What happens next?

Complaints to TVNZ as a precursor to a Beeza inquiry into Henrygate are now moot. Beeza may still feel it necessary to poke a finger in the wound, but I’d be surprised if any complaints make it that far now.

Rick Ellis has promised a review of editorial standards, which is a bit like oiling the hinges on the stable door after… Instead, there will be a hunt to find a replacement for Henry and it will have to be someone extraordinary in order to ensure that the Breakfast ratings don’t just go down the poo-hole with the show’s former star attraction.

Henry will be looking for a new job and like disgraced carefully and slowly rehabilitated sports presenter Tony Veitch, he may yet find another home in commercial radio after a spectacular fall from grace.

This whole messy mess is an opportunity for TVNZ to re-think it’s approach to breakfast television.

 

The captain, but no Tenille

 

I would opt for a return to Captain Kangaroo-style kids entertainment and leave the serious stuff to National Radio.

I loved Captain Kangaroo as a kid growing up in Milwaukee, he was just in control and always seemed about to explode – a lot like Paul Henry, so he would be popular with Henry’s audience profile and appealing to kids.

A serious morning news programme would be very interesting for the state broadcaster and I would enjoy it, but it would be expensive and a ratings stone (most likely). If TVNZ wants to go down that route I would be keen to offer some advice.

In the meantime, here’s the Captain to entertain you while you slurp down a coffee and some Froot Loops.

Henry Laws: Dynamic duo of dysfunctional rhetoric, or just ‘excitable boys’?

I made a bold prediction a few days ago. I suggested that Michael Laws would write a column in today’s Sunday Star Times defending Paul Henry.

Mea culpa. Laws defied my predictive powers and wrote instead about Len Brown and the Auckland mayoralty. However, Laws didn’t disappoint entirely, he has made some comments defending Henry and, along the way, he’s also now made some nasty personal and racist comments about G-G Sir Anand Satyanand.

Ah Michael, you are a paragon of certainty in this uncertain world. How will you manage without the benefit of the mayoral chains yourself. Perhaps you will be less prominent in our lives — at least for those of us who don’t listen to you talk-back drivel.

The tide of commentary about Henry is still rising and despite the absence of Laws’ in today’s papers, there’s plenty of others, including a surprising defence of sorts from Finlay McDonald.

Had Henry ventured that we might like to see, for example, a white person back in Government House, it would seem a little more clear-cut. But as every commentator was obliged to observe from the outset, by seeming to invoke some archetype of New Zealand-ness, it was logically possible he meant to include Maori as well. Straight away, then, it was a little more complicated than a bigoted buffoon running amok on state television inciting race hate. In other words, he might benefit from at least a little bit of doubt.

[Let’s draw the line between idiocy and true racism]

Sorry Finlay, I totally disagree. What ever excuses are cooked up, there was intent in Henry’s comments, just as there was in Michael Laws’ attack on Satyanand last week too.

They are birds of a feather and both deserve to be criticised for their loose lips, not given any benefit of the doubt.

Perhaps, though, if we want to excuse their ugliness, we could suggest, that they are nothing more than “excitable boys”.

Oh Henry #4: He’s not a ‘legend’ and it’s not about freedom of speech

There are two or three types of ‘defence’ that supporters of Paul Henry are using to deflect criticism, or to argue that he’s not racist, just misunderstood.

None of them are really robust, but I’m sure that we’ll see more of it over the next few days as his future hangs in the balance.

At least today TVNZ boss Rick Ellis has signalled that Henry’s future – and indeed, his return to the Breakfast gig – is still far from certain.

“I think that as the week has progressed and the complaints have continued to roll into the company, you’ve really got to reassess things each day and I’ll be reflecting over the weekend and again on Monday as to where we go from here.”

[Paul Henry’s job future looking shaky]

Whatever Ellis might decide in the next few days, Henry’s defenders will try to make the following arguments:

1. he was ‘only joking’ and shouldn’t be thought of as racist
2. he went too far this time, but he’s generally a nice guy and very popular so allow him one or two mistakes
3. you’re only picking on Henry because he’s conservative and he was only exercising his freedom of speech.

I don’t think the first two really stand up and they’ve both been analysed and discredited over the past week by many commentators. The ‘joke’ defence doesn’t stand up when you realise that Henry is a serial offender as I pointed out in ‘Oh Henry’ parts #1, #2 and #3. Henry may be a ‘nice guy’, but his image has taken a battering and his nasty streak is on display in concentrated form this week as everyone’s joined the dots.

[Note to new readers, or those stumbling on this at some distant future date – the background to all of this is contained in my earlier posts (linked above)]

And there’s no freedom of speech issue here either. Hate speech and blatant racism are not protected by any reasonable notion of free speech. That’s why these comments from Murray McCully are totally fatuous (I think that means ‘fart-like’):

Mr McCully this morning issued a statement saying he would also indicate to the Indian Government that Henry’s comments were the actions of one person.

He said freedom of speech was important in New Zealand.

“However it is always regrettable when a prominent individual abuses the freedom of expression, which is one of our basic rights, to cause offence to others.

“That is especially the case when the person offended against is a prominent public figure in another country.

[Henry’s remarks the actions of one person – McCully]

Were they really the actions of one person? Herald columnist Paul Thomas doesn’t find Henry amusing either and his comments about Ellis appearing to defend Henry on free speech grounds are spot on:

Henry’s stuff doesn’t crack me up.

Nor do I get what TVNZ chief executive Rick Ellis is on about when he says Henry “pushes the boundaries and that’s important in a country that values freedom of speech”.

Does Henry engage in cutting satire at the expense of the rich and powerful? Does he champion unpopular causes? Does he challenge middle-class New Zealand’s complacent assumptions? Is he a subversive figure like the American comedian Lenny Bruce who suffered police harassment and blacklisting?

Henry’s such an anti-establishment gadfly that he has a weekly audience with the Prime Minister which is apparently a laugh a minute.

[Penny drops for Henry and his employer]

Yeah, Henry’s apologetics for John Key are awful and now, thankfully, they may be over and Key won’t get a free spot to talk up his lame-arse government at our expense.

There’s a number of issues here that have been highlighted by two comments on my post #3. In particular, how complicit is TVNZ management in Henry’s juvenile posturing and insulting banter?

One of my postgrad journalism students, Josh Gale, points out that Henry’s co-hosts don’t call him out, particularly on the infantile “dick shit” episode:

While I agree with you that in the Dixit video one of his colleagues is trying to correct him, the woman sitting next to him has a big fat grin on her face the whole time. This seems to be quite common. All of his co-hosts sit there and giggle at Paul’s ignorant comments, maybe, but only maybe, saying “oh Paul, you’re being silly” in the usual vacuous manner, but not showing any spine whatsoever. The money must be really really good to sit there like a coward and not say anything.

And media commentator John Drinnan also picked up on this point in his comments:

Josh makes a good point. I’ve also been surprised by TVNZ’s willingness to associate key journalists with untarnished reputation – like Peter Williams, Pippa Wetzell and Alison Mau [with Henry]. Why would you ask key editorial presenters -with reputations to protect- to laugh along at those sort of comments.

So really there are some good questions brewing that I think TVNZ news management now has to answer:

1. What is the editorial policy regarding Paul Henry? Does he have carte blanche?
2. What are the instructions given to producers to hold a line, or to rein in some of Henry’s more outrageous moments?
3. Does Henry have instructions to be outrageous?
4. Does TVNZ management approve of Henry’s clowning and insulting behaviour because it drives up ratings points?

I’m sure I’ll think of more over the next couple of days and feel free to add yours in the comments, but this last question is particularly interesting given the sort of positive response Henry’s actions have got from his loyal fans:

 

A reader poll from the Herald website

 

Government squirms …and so it should

It is great that John Key is still being criticised for his lame response to Henry – he laughed along with the joke – and the government is wriggling on a nasty hook at the moment.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully is also flapping and yapping in a vain attempt to hose down the growing international disquiet that Henry’s comments have set in motion.

Key has also said that the High Commissioner’s response is enough, but he has not apologised himself, nor has he adequately explained his complicit silence.

However, the Nationals may take some solace in the Dominion Post’s editorial from Wednesday last week. The paper’s leader writer opined that Henrygate should lead to the selling off “to the highest bidder” of the emotionally and financially crippled national broadcaster:

//

TVNZ’s belated recognition of the untenability of its position is yet another reason for the Government to consider the broadcaster’s future. With its puerile news service and near-constant diet of reality shows and foreign programmes, TVNZ is indistinguishable from its private-sector rivals. It should be sold to the highest bidder.

[Henry slur a sign of TVNZ’s weakness]

This is a disingenuous argument. One could [and I will] make the entirely opposite argument and suggest that the failure of TVNZ to control Henry’s child-like humour and nasty streak  [two sides of the playground bully] is a result of the unsatisfactory fence straddling that TVNZ has to do as a malformed public broadcaster with commercial imperatives.

It is the chase for ratings that brought Henry to TVNZ in the first place and it is the addiction to advertising revenue that has kept him there. If TVNZ was a real public broadcaster that was adequately funded then they could afford to ditch Henry and the peurile audience he generates.

Audrey Young hints at this in her column from the Herald today:

Paul Henry was respected by a cross-section of politicians in the past because he often subjugated his own right-wing opinions and played devil’s advocate.

He was more careful when Labour was in office, whether consciously or not. Helen Clark welcomed him to New York to do her first big media number of the United Nations.

But under National, he has taken and TVNZ has allowed him a freer rein.

That has morphed into a situation where he will say outrageous things – things he hopefully doesn’t believe – to get the attention he and the channel’s advertising executives crave.

[Careless words now diplomatic incident]

 

Oh Henry #3: What a dipstick! Does Paul play with his poos?

In the contretemps surrounding Paul Henry’s racist comments about the governor general we’ve (well I have, any way) forgotten about the also notorious and recent ‘dickshit’ remarks and juvenile giggling. But it can’t be left aside any longer.

The incident, from a  week earlier, is now front page news in India and the New Zealand High Commissioner has had to apologise to the Indian government for Henry’s actions.

Henry deliberately mispronounced and ridiculed the second name of Sheila Dikshit, who has been in the news after taking charge of the Commonwealth Games preparations.

Henry mispronounced the minister’s name as “Dik-shit” on air, despite being told it was pronounced “Dix-it”.

The Times of India is carrying the story prominently on its website.

This clip is very embarrassing. You can see how Henry’s colleagues are grimacing and trying to shut him up. But Henry is an out-of-control clown.

The man is a national liability. He certainly doesn’t showcase the clean, green image of New Zealand that the country is trying to project overseas.

There’s quite a bit of chatter now about Henry, including an interesting attempt at psychoanalysis by media commentator Brian Edwards. But does it end up excusing his juvenalia?

Update: I just need to say a belated congratulations to Ben Gracewood the technology guy who resigned his Breakfast gig to protest Henry’s racism.
What dignity and courage.TVNZ should sack Henry and ask Ben Gracewood to come back.
Check out Ben’s statement at No more breakfast.