Readers of my piece in Crikey yesterday on the Keating/Sunday Telegraph stoush will know that I sought comment from the reporter and photographer concerned. The photographer was not contactable. The reporter referred me to News Limited’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Greg Baxter, who as readers will know has previously engaged me in vigorous correspondence which I published on this blog. Baxter did not get back to me yesterday. This morning the following was in my email inbox. An explanation of Baxter’s references, and my response to his points, follows.
Margaret, Neilsen numbers for The Punch and Crikey. You know as well as I do that my expression that The Punch had “killed” Crikey’s numbers was not literal. The point is that The Punch has been going for 5 months and Crikey must have had a decade’s head start. Anyway, it’s pointless taking you to task on anything really. Your recent piece on the Press Council was almost entirely incorrect but it is useless sending you any solid evidence to the contrary because you simply aren’t interested in anything we have to say other than to deliberately misinterpret it to suit whatever response you can make up at the time. Your piece yesterday about the Keatings was a gold medal performance. The journalism would not cut it here – you spoke to two people, both unnamed, neither saw what happened, yet you took entirely at face their account of what they believed Katherine Keating would or wouldn’t have done and used this as the basis for your accusation that our staff provoked the attack. We on the other hand have a number of signed and witnessed statements from people who were eye witnesses.
Greg Baxter
Baxter’s reference to Neilsen numbers refers to our earlier correspondence in which Baxter asserted that News Limited’s The Punch had “killed” Crikey’s numbers, and my response which quoted the numbers for October to that date, which showed Crikey ahead of The Punch. Baxter provides some unique browser numbers that were released yesterday. ( have not yet had independent access. I hope to get it later today). The numbers are:
| Market: Australia – Domestic Traffic > By Brand (Website data) | |||
| Period: Monthly, 01/06/09 – 31/10/09 | |||
| UB | |||
|
The Punch |
Crikey |
||
| Jun 09 |
206281 |
179069 |
|
| Jul 09 |
257796 |
182371 |
|
| Aug 09 |
241900 |
182267 |
|
| Sep 09 |
179006 |
181491 |
|
| Oct 09 |
209201 |
192902 |
|
These numbers do indeed show the Punch (which I regard as a good and vigorous publication, by the way) opening a lead over Crikey, although “killed” is clearly overplaying it.
Baxter’s reference to the Press Council is about this story and this blog post as well as this one . Since Baxter does not say how he thinks I am wrong, it is difficult to respond in detail. I would hardly have expected News Limited to be pleased with my analysis, which blamed many of the Council’s recent problems on News Limited high handedness. However, following the publication of the Crikey story, I received an email from the new Press Council chairman, Julian Disney, in which he said, in part:
I am not used to being quoted quite so accurately (perhaps it is a benefit of the dying art of shorthand).
Regards,
Julian
Shorthand is indeed a valuable thing. Moving on.
As for the Keating story and Baxter’s claim about signed witness statements: In other news reports News Limited CEO John Hartigan has been quoted as referring to two signed witness statements – by the reporter and photographer concerned. But the reporter has declined to comment to me, the photographer has not yet responded to a message left asking for comment and, as I said, Baxter has not until now responded to requests for comment, let alone released these witness statements. I would be very happy to write about these witness statements or indeed publish them, or any others, in full, if News Limited wants to make them available. In the meantime I am left with the testimony of others – more than two people - who were there, though admittedly they did not witness the key moment, and so far have declined to be named.
3 Comments
I really don’t understand his focus on page views. Crikey’s main product is its email newsletter, which isn’t picked up in the stats (and, significantly, it costs >$100/year).
Similarly, those figures don’t include RSS readers — Crikey provides full text feeds, which is how I read The Content Makers and Pure Poison and Pollytics, so I’m not picked up in the stats, either. By contrast, The Punch only provides a blurb in its RSS feed and then forces clicks through to the website. (It’s a nuisance, and not necessary when services like Feedburner can provide accurate stats on RSS readership.)
Apples and oranges.
Well, at least Greg Baxter’s cleared up how News Ltd came to publish the Godwin Grech email & the Pauline Hanson photos. You must have written both stories Margaret.
Do they hand out platinum medals?
There are many students at universities around Australia studying journalism, public relations and professional communication. In fact, those studying the latter two possibly now outstrip the former. I know, as part of their theoretical and practical education,these students analyse case-studies of how optimally to handle tricky public relations and corporate communication challenges. I do hope the various bellicose outbursts from the veteran corporate communicator (Remember James Hardie and the asbestos? http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/08/21/greg-baxter-escapes-the-hardie-blame-game) on this blog and elsewhere become de rigeur for relatively innocent neophytes of how NOT to communicate in public effectively and transparently. Mind you, at News Corp at the moment, this is the house style isn’t it from the very top down – accusations, attacks and patently self-serving claims and assertions. Greg Baxter does that part “well”. What he appears to have forgotten, if he ever knew it, is that reasonable readers and listeners can perceive the underlying belligerence and defensiveness and assign to that kind of ill-disciplined approach deep mistrust and antipathy towards that message and all subsequent ones.
If Baxter has, as he claims, these signed statements in relation to the Katherine Keating incident, where are they? Simply accusing Simons of being intrinsically biased is laughable really. If Simons “was almost entirely incorrect” in relation to her Press Council story as Baxter claims, where is his point-by-point refutation? That is journalism AND effective professional communication. Ill-mannered sprays simply don’t cut it. I suppose we can fairly safely interpret this style (with miniscule content or substance) as all part of the same fabric we are seeing from the News Corp HQ as the struggle around the future of supportable quality journalism continues. But surely News Corp’s journalistic properties here require a more competent and nuanced spokesperson with some observable integrity. As I say, some beaut case-studies for the kiddies.