Fairfax: the dumbest guys in the room

Third, what roles have journalists and editors at Fairfax played in the disintegration of a once proud company? This too is left unanswered. Heck, it isn't even raised! The facts, not revealed in the book, are that soon after Corbett joined the board, the SMH was selling 363k copies per weekday and the Age 298k. According to Crikey, by August 2013, the numbers fell to 142k per masthead. This compares appallingly with declines at News Corp, where the Daily Telegraph skidded from 339k in 2004 to 311k this year and the Melbourne Herald Sun recorded sales falling from 516k to 415k. (Note, these figures ignore digital take-up, if any, by new or existing subscribers).

As if the challenge of digital media was not enough, while true, perhaps it is impolite and too tall an order for Williams, an accomplished journalist, to state that some of her brothers and sisters at Fairfax, by repeatedly serving up their personal agendas and not those of the public, are in their own way actively contributing to their own firm's extinction.

Perhaps editorial apples at Fairfax don't fall far from the Chairman's tree.

Such is hubris.