Editor-in-chief of the Australian accuses program of failing to seek his comment on claims paper lost $40m to $50m a year

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

The editor-in-chief of the Australian, Chris Mitchell, has accused the ABC’s Media Watch program of failing to meet editorial guidelines and will lodge complaints with the public broadcaster and the communications watchdog.

In a lengthy interview in the paper’s Media section on Monday, and an accompanying video on the website, Mitchell said the Murdoch-owned broadsheet, which is celebrating its 50th year in 2014, had a bright future in print and was not a “loss-making hole in the ocean”.

Last week, Media Watch host Paul Barry said the paper was losing between $40m and $50m a year.

“Insiders tell Media Watch that the Australian is losing $40m to $50m a year,” Barry said. “The Daily Telegraph is also losing money. And even Brisbane’s Courier-Mail – which was once a goldmine – has hit hard times.”

But Mitchell said it was false to claim the Australian was losing $50m a year and he would complain to the Australian Communications and Media Authority that Barry failed to seek comment from him.

According to the Australian: “Barry said he did not think it was likely the editor-in-chief would respond so he ‘didn’t bother’.”

Barry told Guardian Australia that Mitchell was not contacted directly because the editor-in-chief does not disclose how much the paper is losing, so there was no point. He said Media Watch would respond in Monday night’s program.

“The Australian should not have to draw the program’s attention to the ABC’s code of conduct and editorial policies,” the Australian’s letter to the ABC says. “The program has demonstrably failed to apply the same ‘recognised standards of objective journalism’ to which it is bound by statute and which it expects of the media each week.”

In the interview, Mitchell was as open as he has ever been about the newspaper’s financial status, conceding that the masthead was not profitable and had not been so since 2008.

“More than 90% of our revenue comes from print,” he said, revealing less than 10% of revenue comes from digital subscriptions. “It’s probably not a profitable business on the Australian,” he said in his video interview. “As people have noticed we’ve had a hard time since the GFC but the idea that we are losing $50m is incorrect.”

But Mitchell believes the paper has the best future in the digital world because its audience is an educated elite and they are prepared to pay for the unique and exclusive content the paper produces.

“Because we’ve got this quite unique sales proposition and we are not on the left, where most journalism is these days, we are probably fishing in a pond pretty much alone or with the Financial Review,” he said.

Mitchell said most other media, including the ABC, the BBC, the Guardian and other new entrants in Australia, were all competing for the same audience.

Last week, News Corp chief executive Julian Clarke was the first Murdoch executive to hit back at the Media Watch program.

“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,” Clarke said in News Corp publications on Tuesday.

The episode also displayed a “lack of understanding about the media business”, Clarke said.

Barry said he did contact News Corp about its figures, seeking digital subscription numbers for the Daily Telegraph and Courier Mail, which News Corp refused to supply.

Barry said he believed he would have received a similar response had he asked about the Australian’s losses.

According to Barry, Media Watch executive producer Tim Latham sent Mitchell a letter on Friday saying he would correct the record if the Media Watch statement about the paper’s losses was factually incorrect.

However, first he had to tell them how much the Australian lost last year.

“He refused to answer our questions,” Barry told Guardian Australia. “We are delighted that he has now introduced some transparency by admitting today for the first time that the Australian has been losing money since 2008. Previously he had claimed it was profitable.

“If the Australian discloses its actual audited losses we’d be happy to publish the figure.”

According to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the Australian fell 8.3% year on year and the Weekend Australian fell 9.20%. Fairfax Media’s Age and Sydney Morning Herald fared worse, falling 17% and 16.60% on weekdays respectively.