this post was submitted on 06 May 2024
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Australian Politics

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Does anyone actually think Bernard Keane and Crikey are actually any good?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

@unionagainstdhmo Definitely a bad take by Bernard there.

As for whether Crikey as a whole is any good?

Honestly, I think it and its parent company Private Media have been really poorly managed at times.

Many of the best reporters at the Nine papers and The Guardian used to write for Crikey and its sister publications at one time or another.

Some current and past Private Media journos/contributors are active on the Fedi, including @firstdogonthemoon, @paulwallbank, @stilgherrian, and @mpesce.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

@ajsadauskas @unionagainstdhmo @firstdogonthemoon @stilgherrian @mpesce As an early contributor, supporter, and long time subscriber, Crikey often infuriates me. Keane's takes are often dreadful and his writing on business is truly terrible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

@ajsadauskas @franksting @unionagainstdhmo @firstdogonthemoon @stilgherrian @mpesce I've nearly unsubscribed from Crikey a number of times because of Rundle's tosh.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

@paulwallbank @franksting @unionagainstdhmo @firstdogonthemoon @stilgherrian @mpesce Crikey/Private Media really could (and probably should) be a much bigger company than it is, just it's been really horrendously managed.

Hopefully Will Hayward is doing a better job, because many of his predecessors have left a lot to be desired.

For most of its life, Private Media barely turned a profit, and that's been with Crikey subscriptions and SmartCompany basically carrying the various other websites that have come and gone over the years.

Many talented young journos have worked there, only to move on to the Nine newspapers or the ABC after a year or two.

You had the former CEO who one day was running cables through the ceiling of the old offices next to the Immigration Museum.

You had the other former CEO who loaded the organisation up with sales staff, only for them all to be made redundant within six months.

You had ideas that could have made money (spin out Patrick Stafford's SmartCompany tech newsletter into its own small business tech publication) knocked back, while vanity projects with no business model (remember Paul Barry's Power Index?) got the green light.

At one stage, Crikey used a heavily hacked WordPress as its content management system. SmartCompany and LeadingCompany used Joomla!, and StartupSmart used FlexiContent. All self-hosted out of a Port Melbourne data centre.

Despite owning a digital media company, the people in charge at the time didn't know enough about digital tech to know what a massive resource black hole this was.

(Eric Beecher had to bring in consultants to tell him!)

I could go on...

#Auspol #Media #Politics #Crikey #Politics #Business #Melbourne #Sydney #Fairfax #Economics #Journalism #Vicpol #NSWpol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I'm not sure it's worth the price they're asking though, especially if poor takes from Bernard Keane are common and not caught by editors or even checked for sanity