Barista provides an excellent summary of recent changes in the Australian media and its likely future direction – particularly the purchase of Rural Press by the Fairfax group.
Perhaps a specialist interest, but of particular interest to me, since I worked for one and nearly worked for the other. I was lined up to do a cadetship on the Sydney Morning Herald until young Warwick came in and took over the company in one of those disastrous late-eighties takeover swoops that meant an immediate staff freeze.
And I did work experience at The Land, which was at the time Rural Press’s only paper – and owe a lot to the patient chief sub there who first taught me to turn 100cm of detailed notes into a 30cm news story. (My first story published was on chital deer: I still have it somewhere.)
And then at the Cootamundra Herald I worked for Rural Press and later the Northern Daily Leader, indeed directly with Brian McCarthy, who I see has risen to great heights, which surprises me not at all. If you want a man to “control” your costs, I’d reckon he’d be it.
Nostalgia? No!
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