Honey, I Shrunk The Broadsheets!

This is a big moment in the history of Fairfax Media.

March 4, 2013 marked the first day that the nation’s pre-eminent broadsheet was no more. A month shy of its 182^nd birthday, the Sydney Morning Herald has become a tabloid. Or, to use the term preferred by Fairfax, a “compact”. To emphasise the point, the Herald‘s Melbourne sibling, The Age, is shrinking too.

The symbolism is hard to overlook. The newspaper versions of the SMH and The Age have been physically reduced, just as their staff numbers are dwindling, just as advertising revenues continue to shrivel and just as circulation figures keep contracting. The new formats have been introduced to make the paper easier to read; but it’s tempting to see the smaller size as the result of smaller teams with less money catering to fewer readers.

Is this a final, futile arranging of the deckchairs before these venerable rags sink? Fairfax, of course, says no. A week ahead of the relaunch, ex-editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, Max Prisk, wrote a front-page story putting the change into historical context. “The company,” he wrote, “will take the next big step in the fight to retain relevance for the print newspaper in a digital age.” Prisk noted that the Herald had been small before. “On size it is almost full circle,” he wrote. It has also been bigger. With its success, the Herald grew into a cumbersome, enormous broadsheet. Then, in 1941, its width was reduced by 25%, to the size it remained until now.

The new format of 1941, just like the new format of 2013, both arrive accompanied by a commitment to maintaining quality. But over in Surry Hills, at the HQ of Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd, no one is very impressed. “Compact editions no saviour for Fairfax,” said The Australian.

Certainly, circulation is dwindling, according to figures released last month. Year-on-year, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age are both down 14.5% (to about 157,000 daily sales each). The Sun Herald fared worse, down 22%. Fairfax played down these results, affirming its commitment to “total masthead sales”. That is, the company prefers to look at combined print and digital sales. They have to. As Steve Allen from media consultancy Fusion Strategy says, this was the worst newspaper audit on record.

Into this daunting context Fairfax launches its new compact print editions. No wonder it’s been a soft launch.

“The Sydney Morning Herald, since inception, has been about quality journalism,” said the Herald’s editor-in-chief, Sean Aylmer. “Whether people read us as a compact newspaper, or on a smartphone, or tablet, or online, and any other future platform, quality journalism … will always be our raison d’etre.”

In other words, at the launch of a new paper, its editor-in-chief was spruiking other platforms. At Fairfax, multi-platform is the new buzzword. Since last year, the company’s guiding motto has been “Digital First”. Accordingly, the newspapers – with their expensive overheads, anachronistic distribution and dwindling revenue – are anything but first. These days, Fairfax is about websites and apps, about Airlink and auto-play video.

The good news for Fairfax fans is that the multi-platform strategy is working, at least in terms of attracting readers, if not dollars. Last year, smh.com.au attracted a unique audience of 3 million per month, as well as 5.7 million monthly video streams and 58.8 million tablet app page views. The readership of The Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers may be falling fast, but the combined readership of all versions of the SMH and Age is growing even faster.

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I’m hardly a dispassionate observer of this week’s relaunch.

I was employed by the Sydney Morning Herald as a cadet in 1994, and remained on staff – with a short break in the late ‘90s – until last September. I’ve spent most of my whole working life there. And 2012 can only be described as an annus horribilis for the Herald.

The year began optimistically, with the announcement of a major editorial review. Teams of the brightest and best were assembled to overhaul the newspaper’s editorial structure. Regular meetings were held to keep all staff involved and informed, often via Powerpoint presentations and chunky handouts. “Our future begins today,” wrote Garry Linnell in an email to staff in June. “We are proudly unveiling the most significant editorial transformation in this company’s history.”

Linnell, having re-joined Fairfax from News Ltd, had risen quickly to become editorial director. Tall and bald, he scowled as a default expression. His manner was intense and intimidating; but his enthusiasm for wholesale reform would have been infectious, if not for the fact that in June the company also made another announcement. It was going to shed 1900 staff.

For the Sydney Morning Herald, this would mean the loss of 70 editorial staff. Roughly 20% would go in voluntary redundancies. Immediately, the atmosphere at the Pyrmont base soured. How could staff create an all-new, forward-looking newsroom, when the person next to you might not be there? When you might not be there?

And then a sudden decapitation. Two, in fact. Shortly after Linnell boldly announced the company’s new future, the Herald’s editor-in-chief/publisher Peter Fray and its editor Amanda Wilson were ousted.

Admittedly, no one could dispute the cold numbers. With circulation in a downward spiral, Fairfax shares slumped to an all-time low of 69 cents in April. And in August, Fairfax posted a $2.7b loss and saw its share price drop to 46 cents. Suddenly, staff were raising the possibility of doomsday scenarios. Of the company going bust; of the paper being scrapped.

Meanwhile, the world’s richest woman was making a move. As the staff sweated on the future, Gina Rinehart snapped up shares. She wanted a seat on the board, but, as her stake approached 20%, she refused to sign the Herald’s charter of editorial independence, and was thwarted. Fairfax has always had a reputation as independent; Rinehart didn’t care for it.

Rupert Murdoch already owns 70% of Australia’s papers. Fairfax staffers were worried. If Rinehart took control of the Herald, where would that leave the diversity of voices in Australian media?

The names exiting the building were among the paper’s best-loved. Adele Horin. Doug Anderson. David Marr. Malcolm Brown. John Huxley. And me too. After nearly 19 years, I was worried that churnalism might be replacing journalism.

Then, in August and September, the farewells began in earnest. On one afternoon, 40 staff said their goodbyes at the newsdesk in truncated speeches. The names exiting the building were among the paper’s best-loved. Adele Horin. Doug Anderson. David Marr. Malcolm Brown. John Huxley.

And me too. After nearly 19 years, I was worried that churnalism might be replacing journalism. Anyway, it was time for a fresh start. And at least it was flattering to be leaving the building in the company of such luminaries.

I spent my final weeks at the Herald editing ‘Column 8’, for which readers contribute oddities, witticisms and pedantry. One item was about the theft of a mural in East Sydney. A few days earlier, the theft had been reported online at smh.com.au, to no effect. When it was reported in ‘Column 8’, however, the mystery was solved after several readers came forward with information.

Who says the paper has become irrelevant? Not Gina Rinehart, it seems. And not Warren Buffett, the American guru of investment who last week bought his 28th daily newspaper by acquiring the Tulsa World – the second-largest newspaper in Oklahoma. Does the sage of Omaha think newspapers are headed for a rebound in circulations and revenues? Or is he merely engaged in an act of philanthropy?

Industry body The Newspaper Works says that Australians still buy more than 18 million newspapers every week – most of them in print editions. And a long list of talent continues to work at The Sydney Morning Herald, and at The Age. Kate McClymont vexes Eddie Obeid. Ross Gittins translates the economy into plain English. Jacob Saulwick holds the architects of Sydney’s troubled transport to account.

And I hope their names continue to appear in print. Sure, digital media can deliver better images and videos, immediacy and interactivity, but print is something else. For one thing, it has an appealing element of serendipity. Newspapers have an uncanny ability to lead readers to stories they didn’t expect to be reading, to stories which turn out to be utterly fascinating.

Let’s hope, then, that the papers are published for a good while yet – as long as the new compact editions are not accompanied by new compact ambitions. This won’t be easy, because grand ambitions won’t be easy to nurture in the current climate. Those who remain at Fairfax are up against it, with fewer staff creating more content for more platforms.

“Everyone is working harder than ever,” one ex-colleague told me last week. “More stuff etc etc.”

His brutal email shorthand said it all.

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Sacha Molitorisz is a former Sydney Morning Herald staffer who teaches Global Media at NYU-Sydney while researching the ethics of new media.