AUTHORS NOTE

This story was sent to Crikey, Fairfax, New Matilda and the Drum. All rejected it or never replied.

I do well in placing stories. I take knock backs on the chin but I took exception this time. I’ve been working in the media or allied professions off and on for 20 years and this was a researched story. They must think I came down in the last shower.

I know - and the editors know - that we’re entering the last years of large metropolitan newspapers in Australia. I chose the Advertiser because it has a monopoly, it’s in my home town and I had a source inside editorial.

The effects of the Advertiser closing, reducing its publication to three days a week or being sold, will have a massive and compounding impact on all South Australians, including the business community.

I could have written an article on how the diligent anonymity of the reporter has been traded for opinionated personality at a time when hard, investigative critiques were demanded. But this story is about the future of newspapers – specifically, The Advertiser – not content.

Crikey thought a better story would be on the gate keeping function of the Advertiser. I can guarantee readers that a story that uses research, has insider knowledge and shows the demise of a newspaper in a monopoly market, trumps any other angle.

The Drum said they ‘lost’ the story.

While the media attacks individuals, corporations and politicians with impunity – and then howls when it comes up against privacy or media ownership laws - when it comes to reporting on itself, it’s shockingly timid and fearful. It lacks reflexivity.

The public has a right to know what is happening in the Fourth Estate at a time when the circulation of newspapers is in free fall.

South Australia is heading in to a period of extreme economic turmoil. Its only daily newspaper is in crisis. The ‘Tisers’ online newspaper is floundering yet the media don’t reckon this is a story. God help us but thank God for Opinion Online.

It probably would have done. Mr King..

>>I can guarantee readers that a story that uses research, has insider knowledge and shows the demise of a newspaper in a monopoly market, trumps any other angle.<<

Unfortunately, you have diluted this approach with a healthy dose of Opinion.

"It appeared - superficially at least - as liberal, humanist and even handed, but its normative values supported a deeply orthodox political mindset. It patrolled the status quo like a Rottweiler, making it completely unfit to discuss how radical changes such as globalization, deregulation, the rise of Asian manufacturing and online trading, would effect South Australians and especially local business. It slumped from a newspaper of record under the great editorships of Des Colquhoun and Don Riddell, to become mired in parochialism after the News Ltd take over in 1987."

Which makes your offering perfect fodder for Online Opinion.

I expect there will be people who agree with you that the Tiser has become just another piece of Murdoch parrot-cage liner, and others who will protest that it remains a pillar of rectitude, demonstrating decent Australian values.

But you can't blame the editors of Crikey, Fairfax, New Matilda and the Drum for knocking it back - it is simply too long for the Letters page.

I notice that you didn't approach News Ltd. Was there perhaps a reason for this?

If you revel in Real Estate or Sports news then they are perfect.
Otherwise a complete waste of money and time.
Just another right wing mouthpiece for Rupert.

"People need the news. It's as vital to democracy as sunlight is to crops". Aye aye.

I certainly haven't got mine from any NewsCorp publication. Readers know their 'news' is censored and their 'analysis' is biased opinion along the lines of king Murdoch's.

I read several on-line news blogs and other less biased papers such as Guardian, The Week and New York Times. And or course our essential ABC.

Getting news is a bit like investment - best to be diversified. i.e. don't get it from biased monopolies like NewsCorp.

Pericles, I wish they had knocked it back because it was too long. See my comment on reflexivity.

This is a business story AND a media story. The Tiser (M-F) page count over the last three years has dropped 15 per cent. There are serious over work problems in editorial. Two section editors are so short staffed, they have trouble putting out their editions. Ads have crashed and the forward projections (newspaper ads) are very poor. They've lost rural and regional readers. Young people have deserted the paper in droves.

My opinion doesn't matter much (last five paras) but those facts as cited in the article are glaring - and the Tiser isn't the worst hit paper. For that, see SMH, the Age and Daily Tele.

The question is who or what will take the Tiser's place in a monopoly market? Or maybe, the Tiser will go it alone as an online newspaper - but see in article how difficult that is to do from the newspaper model. The article raises more questions than answers, I'm afraid.

You're right. I could have tried News Corp. I could have also tried to join the Bandito bikie gang but I didn't think - rightly - that I would be accepted. Lovely chaps they may be.

Which comes first?
Is circulation dropping because advertising is falling or VV?