This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

The chief executive of Fairfax Media, Greg Hywood, has accused News Corp of “mad rantings and ravings” and of spreading lies about his company’s commitment to the future of newspapers.

Under pressure from dramatic drops in circulation, Australia’s two biggest newspaper companies are engaging in an increasingly vitriolic public slanging match.



After a series of attacks from News Corp executives on his management and strategy, Hywood, also the managing director of Fairfax, hit back in an internal memo to staff.

On Monday Hywood told Fairfax staff not to believe the “litany of bizarre commentary on the state of the industry” and the “speculative lies” about Fairfax Media, including that it would stop printing the Monday to Friday metropolitan newspapers by the end of the year.

He assured staff he would not walk away from print, as more than 75% of revenue came from the 200 printed titles published in Australia and New Zealand, including the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age.

In 2011 Hywood spearheaded a restructuring of the company which led to the laying off of 1900 staff, the outsourcing of subediting and the merging of digital and print operations. Last month he announced another round of redundancies.

Hywood said News Corp’s “mad ranting and ravings of late are just their standard tactics of bludgeoning anyone who dares to have a different voice”.

He was responding to comments by News Corp co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch at the Mumbrella360 media conference last week and to articles in the Australian on Monday.

Murdoch accused Fairfax of being crazy and irresponsible, and showing a lack of leadership for giving up on print.

Hywood countered by labelling the Australian’s Media section “advertorial” because it published stories talking up its own business, including one claiming the broadsheet was profitable on “a number of weeks”.

“While most of us ignore [the Media section] and sometimes get a good chuckle at its absurdity, the time has come to explode some of their self-serving myths,” Hywood said.

The editor-in-chief of the Australian, Chris Mitchell, admitted earlier this year that the national daily, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, loses $30m a year.

Hywood wrote: “But lo and behold today we hear about a new business model that will change the world.

“In the Australian today, writing about themselves yet again: ‘For the first time in the Australian’s history, it is returning a profit digitally and, in a number of weeks this year, the Australian newspaper has been profitable.’

“News flash – Fairfax Media has never stopped making profits on all its mastheads – in print and digital,” Hywood wrote.

“Fairfax has demonstrated its ability to adapt to our competitive environment. According to Emma [Enhanced Media Metrics Australia], the industry endorsed metric, the Sydney Morning Herald is the nation’s most widely read publication across print, web and mobile.”

While both companies have a new revenue stream in digital subscriptions, as their content sits behind a paywall, print circulation and revenue from advertising is in sharp decline.

The Age weekday edition’s circulation fell by 17.9% between 2012 and 2014; the SMH 14.5% and the Australian Financial Review 6.4%, according to recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Circulation.

The biggest drop was by the AFR’s weekend edition, which fell 23.1%.

At News Corp, the Weekend Australian fell 10% and the Monday to Friday Australian fell 6.7%. The Herald Sun lost 10.1% of its weekday print circulation and the Daily Telegraph 9.1%.

Hywood accused News Corp of resisting the digital age, a reference to the backlash against former News chief executive Kim Williams’s digitally-focused strategy.

“Are we surprised by such behaviour?” Hywood said. “Hardly. News Corp is wracked by deep-seated cultural problems. How could we forget this is the group whose legacy to journalism is phone hacking.

“So ignore all the self-serving nonsense from News. We at Fairfax are just getting on with delivering great journalism that makes a profit.

“Cue more gnashing of teeth and theatrics from Holt Street.”