You wouldn’t wipe your arse with it
I don’t often agree with Ironbar Tuckey, but this letter to the Australian Financial Review of a few days ago struck a chord on several important points.
The public attempt by West Australian Newspapers Holdings CEO Ian Law to highlight the declining circulation of a virtual monopoly publication, distributed in a state of expanding population and prosperity, clearly demonstrates his frustration at being the meat in the sandwich between his equally under-performing board and senior editorial staff.
At least one long-serving board member has retired in disgust after years of attempting to convince his colleagues of the failure of WAN’s senior editorial staff to present a quality, marketable product to a contemporary WA readership.
The board’s decision to replace editor-in-chief Paul Murray with a television news editor must have been the last straw.
The subsequent period of front-page stories based on TV current affairs style journalism was an affront to anyone seeking an alternative to that medium. WAN continues to employ the same feature writers over decades who continue to apply 1960s philosophy to current events, and poor Law laments the failure of WA’s new generation of consumers to have The West Australian delivered.
The West’s past failure to take the lead in exposing the excesses of WA Inc is duplicated today in the paper’s continuing failure to produce political balance.
To reverse the fortunes of WAN, shareholders must start with the board. Their accountancy skills are not to be questioned, but they should give Law the joint position of CEO/editor-in-chief and allow him to restructure the editorial process to one the people of WA want to read — and take more than five minutes to do so.
Wilson Tuckey MP
Canberra, ACT
I don’t necessarily agree that Ian Law should be given absolute control over the paper (according to Crikey he’s a bit dodgy) but the West has certainly descended even further into the tabloid market of late. I mean, when you’ve got a headline that fills half the front page, do you really need to underline it?
I always agree with Wilson Tuckey!
I doubt anybody actually reads the articles in the West Australian. Even the sport pages aren’t worth a pinch of shit – it’s basically a Glen Jakovich/Ben Cousins fan mag.
It’s really only useful for the classifieds. Why would you read a piece of shit like the West when you can read all the major national papers online for free?