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News Corp defends sales, news stories following Media Watch editorial.

News Corp is unhappy it wasn't contacted by Media Watch before being criticised on Monday night.

2014-02-04_1051News Corp Australia has defended its digital sales and its content style and said Media Watch host Paul Barry failed to contact the company before criticising it on Monday night.

Barry questioned “click bait” stories, filled with volatile headlines, being used by media companies including News Corp, Mail Online and BuzzFeed to draw readers as print sales slide.

“They’re forced into offering this fare—or so they believe—because they need to make money, and it’s now almost impossible to do that from print,” he said.

But News Corp CEO Julian Clarke said it demonstrated a lack of understanding about the media business.

“Paul Barry subjects his viewers to a lecture about the state of our business and the standards of journalism and fails to contact a single executive from our company while compiling his report,” he said.

“In Barry’s rush to write off all media other than the ABC, he fails to tell the real story which is that more people are reading our newspapers and digital editions than ever before and more people are buying our digital products than ever before.”

Paul Barry said, “I don’t think if we’d have gone to News Corp that we’d have got anything.”

This week Mumbrella reported double digit declines for The Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun, posting weekday declines of 12 per cent and 12.3 per cent respectively. The Australian has 55,991 digital subscribers while the Herald Sun has 37,654 digital subscribers.

23 Responses

  1. .. and in Media Watch last night ( the next episode after the one we’re talking about ) Paul Barry said they’d asked the editor if it was true the paper had lost money. But they declined to answer.

    Surprise, surprise!

    That’s why they didnt bother asking in the first place. Although I’m inclined to think Media Watch really should have at least gone through the motions in the first place, even if only to say ‘.. and we asked them to comment and they declined’.

  2. I am so glad that Media Watch exists and for their keeping an eye on what the media do as well as its state. I think what Paul Barry said was unfortunately correct.

    As for the getting newspapers for both the Herald-Sun and The Age have been often (but not always ) sold out in the past two weeks. Although I’m not the one that gets it so what I’ve had to say is hearsay. It doesn’t surprise me anymore that they are scarce. Ironically I wanted the TV Guides.

  3. @HardcorePrawn @Frankie – I have often wondered myself how much News Corps sales figures are inflated by all the freebies they give to organisations such as Maccas et. al. And various subscription deals…

    They used to have a pretty good deal for teachers, whereby we could get a years subscription for about 30 bucks. I never bought into it and neither did too many others. As Frankie said, I’d just borrow someone else’s and “read” it in 5 mins. After all, as News Corp aims for readers with a reading age of 8, it wasn’t a real challenge 😉

  4. Yes Bazza – just like you don’t need to talk to someone whom was actually there when asylum seekers claimed to be mistreated by navy personnel? If Media Watch can’t be bothered to go to the effort of seeking a response from the subject of their story then that is poor and sloppy jounalism – something that Media Watch was originally set up to find!

    I think News Corp was complaining about inaccurate/incomplete circulation/subscription figures – you would expect that Media Watch would be able to get these figures correct, if they are going to give the media lectures on codes of behavior and conduct.

  5. @Hardcore Prawn, yes, I like to buy the Age on the way home from work, often have trouble from 3pm onwards.

    Also, at my workplace we receive 50 free Herald Suns each day, 7 days a week. Are these added to their circulation figures? Sure they’re all taken but I often hear comments along the lines of preferring the Age. Upside is it takes me 10 minutes to read during lunch.

  6. It is embarrassing to News Corp’s hard-working journalists how their editors and corporate leaders are behaving. First their blatantly biased coverage of the Labor government damaged News Corp’s local reputation at a time when Gina Rinehart’s influence was disillusioning a lot of Fairfax readers. Then they are so keen to bash the ABC they get involved in ridiculous non-stories like this (the rise of clickbait is hardly something you need to get confirmation from a CEO about – it’s seen everywhere across online sites and the story was about the clickbait-heavy Daily Mail coming to Australia to compete with the clikcbait-heavy News.com.au). Just what do News Corp expect to get in return for their cheerleading for Abbott & Hockey and against the ABC? Labor was very likely going to lose the election anyway and yet The Daily Telegraph came out with headlines like ‘Kick This Mob Out’…

  7. Media watch are on the money regarding click bait. Ultimately it’s simple supply and demand and there is a greater demand for interesting headlines and stories, at the expense of quality journalism. Look at the headline on news website now, it’s a “The Biggest Loser” article. Good to see old Rupe helping the family…

  8. Would love to see Media Watch do a story on how News Corp received nearly $900m payout from the tax office after the regulator decided not to appeal the federal court decision in the middle of the federal election campaign last August. Its all stick and stones. You need to dig a little deep these days for news. Sadly I no longer buy news papers with online content from around the world so much easier but that sort of clickbait headline will never draw me in.

  9. I think the reason for declines in Herald Sun readers and Not Age readers. Is that Age readers are the sort of people that will still go out and buy a News Paper for the enjoyment of reading it.

    Whereas the people who would have in the past read the Sun, not just go to those websites for their “News”

  10. In relation to the Herald Sun’s declining figures (& apologies for straying away from the topic of TV), have any other Melburnians noticed that most retailers stock about 4 or 5 times the amount of copies of the Herald Sun as they do for the Age?

    This doesn’t seem to reflect actual sales either: by the afternoon (on most days) it’s almost impossible to buy a copy of the Age in my neighbourhood as they’re all sold out, but everywhere still has mountains of unsold copies of the Sun.

    It makes me wonder if News Corp are deliberately flooding the market, and whether retailers are deliberately under-ordering from Fairfax.

  11. Anyone else notice that the new establishment has changed the way it does headlines? In the old days:

    “Hindenberg Crashes: Lives Lost”

    Now:

    “Giant Airship Inferno: What Happened Next Will Shock You”

  12. This was a story about the dire state of the newspaper industry in general. It wasn’t specific to News Corp so I don’t know why they’re suddenly acting like it was.

  13. Erm… I just looked at News.com.au. The headline stories?

    “School ‘paid bills with child porn'”
    “Will Willesee ever get Schapelle?”
    “Olympic heavyweights: ‘We ate too much'”
    “The Viking apocalypse is coming! Is it the end?”

    Looks like clickbait to me…

  14. I’m glad media watch is back, I find it must see viewing every week. Newscorp have looong tried to discredit Media Watch as they keep pointing out all the stuff ups they make and frenzy they try to whip up without any facts. This is all part of the lets bag the ABC, don’t think Newscorp arn’t in bed with the Government? Think again.

  15. Why would he contact the industry, when all he’d get would be this kind of spin? You can observe something and make quite valid conclusions of your own, without contacting anyone at all. I don’t need to talk to the participants of a car crash to know what happened,

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