The Miegunyah Press
The General Series
of the Miegunyah Volumes
was made possible by the
Miegunyah Fund
established by bequests
under the wills of
Sir Russell and Lady Grimwade.
Miegunyah was the home of
Mab and Russell Grimwade
from 1911 to 1955.
PRAISE FOR
FAIRFAX: THE RISE AND FALL
A compelling account of the money behind the media.
Newcastle Herald
Its a story full of colourful characters, family ructions, political manipulation and plenty of judgments clouded by emotionwhich, as Ryan points out, is rarely good for strategy. Although she was familiar with much of the history, there were surprises.
The Australian
Ryan, aided by very good sources and the excellent work of others, is able to build a revealing picture of the Fairfax journalism of the 1980s, the period seen by many people as its heyday. Her approach is forensic and organised and she pulls no punches.
The Spectator
Its left to Colleen Ryan to tease out the threads of the story behind Fairfaxs demise. Ryan is a great writer, crisp and pacey. There is no padding, just on-the-record recollections from key players. She has an ear for the quirky observation that brings to life what could have been a dry account of a conversation.
Walkley Magazine
Ryan writes smoothly and elegantly
Fairfax: The Rise and Fall is a fascinating read.
Weekend Australian
Colleen Ryan was a Fairfax journalist for over 35 years. She is a former Editor of the Australian Financial Review and during her career she was Washington correspondent for the AFR and more recently China correspondent, based in Shanghai for 6 years.
Colleen has worked across the Fairfax group including a decade with the Sydney Morning Herald and five years with National Times. She has won three Walkley awards including the Gold Walkley and received a Centenary Medal for services to journalism and publishing, as well as the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award.
Colleen was co-author of the last book on FairfaxCorporate Cannibals, The Taking of Fairfaxpublished in 1992.
FAIRFAX
THE RISE AND FALL
COLLEEN RYAN
THE MIEGUNYAH PRESS
An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited
1115 Argyle Place South, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia
mup-info@unimelb.edu.au
www.mup.com.au
First published 2013
This edition published 2014
Text Colleen Ryan, 2013
Design and typography Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2013
This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.
Page iv illustration by David Rowe.
Photographs on p. xii and p. 293 and courtesy of Andrew at www.theworstofperth.com. Taken at Morley, Western Australia.
Designed by Phillip Campbell Design
Typeset by Cannon Typesetting in Bembo 11.5/14.5pt
Printed in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Ryan, Colleen, author.
Fairfax: The Rise and Fall / Colleen Ryan.
9780522866834 (pbk)
9780522867220 (ebook)
Includes index.
John Fairfax & SonsReorganization.
Fairfax Media (Firm)Reorganization.
Corporate reorganizationsAustralia.
Newspaper publishingAustraliaHistory.
NewspapersOwnershipHistory.
Press monopoliesAustraliaHistory.
338.76107050994
For Steve, Georgia and HamishContents
Prologue
Rinehart Stakes Her Claim
T HE FIRST SIGN that anything was amiss was the ruckus coming from the bank of elevators outside the newsroom. A group was engaged in an unusually loud conversation as it stepped out of a lift. One of the speakers had a very high-pitched voice, like that of a young girl.
Greg Hywood, Fairfaxs chief executive, then entered the newsroom with a rather large woman beside him. It was Gina Rinehart, the richest person in Australia, worth an estimated $29 billion. Any interest journalists had in their news stories that evening in March 2012 disappeared in an instant. All eyes were on Rinehart, drinking her in. She was now the biggest shareholder in Fairfax. She could buy up the whole enterprise merely by reaching into her petty cash tin.
Rinehart had just come from a meeting with Hywood and Fairfax chairman Roger Corbett where she had laid out her demand for two seats on the Fairfax board. A tour of The Australian Financial Review newsroom and a meeting with editor Michael Stutchbury was Hywoods antidote to an awkward situation.
The multibillionaire was accompanied by her burly security guard, all 2 metres of him. Rinehart was wearing a sleeveless cream top with a big fabric flower on her dcolletageall that money and no fashion sense, was the consensus as the whispers spread throughout the newsroom.
It was the first time that any of the journalists had seen Gina Rinehart in the flesh. They had seen her on television as she stood on the back of a flatbed truck in Perths Langley Park and led the gathered crowds chant of Axe the Tax to protest the federal governments ill-fated mining tax. They had read about the spectacular fights over the family fortunefirst with her stepmother, Rose Porteus, and then with three of her children, John, Bianca and Hope. And they had read her poetry.
They knew that Rinehart had found politics, and that it was her own particular brand. She had money, lots of it, and no-one was going to take it from herparticularly not a tax-hungry Labor government. Rinehart was a climate change sceptic. She opposed the carbon tax. She thought workers should work harder for less money. She didnt believe in editorial independence. And now she wanted those seats on the Fairfax board.
Little wonder the journalists were transfixed. Some were horrified by Rineharts grab for political power and influence through gaining a stake in their quality newspapers. The more radical among them thought that she was a right-wing nutbag. Others simply saw her as alien to their profession. They joked about the advent of the Sydney Mining Herald.
But there was general agreement that newspapers were in enough trouble. They didnt need Rinehart as well.
