Media

LASHED: The Age’s editor attacked by disgusted readers

The Age’s current editor Paul Ramadge is a regular on the Jon Faine show on Melbourne’s ABC radio. It’s normally a very cosy chat about the great issues of concern within Melbourne’s latte curtain.

A recent appearance turned into a chainsaw massacre as this transcript from The Australian reveals:

Anthea from Mt Eliza: I just wondered when you’re going to get rid of Catherine Deveny.

Jon Faine: Because?

Anthea: I just don’t think she’s right for The Age newspaper. I just think she’d be more suitable for a student newspaper or The BigIssue .

Paul Ramadge: No columnist in the recent history of The Age does this. Hate her or love her is the result for Catherine Deveny. She knows that and to a great extent she is the agent provocateur of the columnists in The Age . She’s not appearing in The Age at the moment, I can tell you.

Faine: Would you mind telling us why?

Ramadge: Well, there are some discussions about is there a contract or not, and those are ongoing and it’s not fair to go into any more detail than that.

Faine: Do you want to keep her?

Ramadge: Well it’s a discussion moment, an ongoing discussion.

Faine: Is it about money only or is it about what she writes?

Ramadge: It started still sits on theissue of money.

Faine: Anthea, it seems they’re trying to keep her.

Anthea: I don’t like what she writes and I don’t think she represents Age stands for.

Faine: Well, just don’t read it then.

Anthea: Well, I’ve actually just switched to The Australian.

Faine: Claire from Eltham . . . hi Claire.

Claire: I want to ask the editor why the education section of The Age has transformed from an excellent lift-out section into two pages of not particularly serious articles and one page of ads.

Ramadge: Let’s be clear, The Age is committed to education but what we have done is to go into multimedia publishing.

Claire: As a teacher-educator, I am very disappointed. What the editor has just said isn’t true. I’ve been reading The Age my whole life and it just looks like cost cutting. The Age on Monday was so thin, I thought: why am I paying my subscription for this piece of paper, which also contains so much advertising that I just chuck away?

Faine: I’m glad you mentioned that, Claire. We had someone knock on the door the other day and offer to give us a subscription to The Age for the price of the weekend paper. Seven days a week for the price of Saturday and Sunday. Paul, is that how you’re getting subscribers now?

Ramadge: It’s always been the case that you have a mixture of subscription offers.

Faine: But you’re giving the paper away Monday to Friday for nothing.

Ramadge: No, not really at all. What you could say is that there’s a discounted price for home subscribers who we value immensely . . .

Faine: But we were offered seven days a week for the price of Saturday and Sunday, which means you’re giving away Monday to Friday for nothing.

Ramadge: Well, you can get a seven-day-a-week Age for $8 a week.

Faine: That’s right.

Ramadge: And why that is . . .

Faine: No, it was less than $8 a week..

Ramadge: Then you were being offered a four-day-a-week subscription offer, which is different. At the end of the day we value our subscribers. They get a price benefit for being locked in as a subscriber and we see it as a positive. And it’s why subscriptions have been growing. And to what extent that is giving it away, I don’t think so. It’s discounting to suit the best customer.

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