Old-fashioned subterfuge at Crikey

Like a preacher behind a pulpit, Eric Beecher, Crikey.com.au's publisher and editor-in-chief, has once again come out from behind his internet veil to rage against declining standards of journalism in Australia after a rash of staff cuts by Channel Nine and Fairfax. According to Beecher, writing in Crikey a few days ago, "these are the dog days for Australian journalism", with Australia's most senior and experienced journalists either taking voluntary redundancies or being given a forceful boot by their long-time employers. And yes, there can be very few journalist - and Beecher does consider himself a journalist, rather than a publisher, or businessman - who would disagree with his conclusion, because it's no secret, nor is it news that Australia's Fourth Estate is a little unfit at the moment.

But while Beecher - an old-school print journo who's only just now realised the internet's potential - has written off newspaper journalism and now spends his days railing against his old employer Fairfax and Helen Coonan's proposed media changes, he's probably not being completely honest with his readers when he complains about the slipping quality of Australian journalism. Because, as Mr Beecher is no doubt aware, the more the quality of reportage slips, the more those pining for the good old days, where journalists downed a couple of bottles over a long lunch, and smoked themselves into emphysema, are going to turn to Crikey to get the "story behind the story". And how disappointed they'll be when they realise what they've been reading is nothing more than mutton dressed up as lamb: a swag of pseudo-commentators dressed up, given a notepad and a pen and called journalists.

And so we have Beecher: one hand playing the fist-in-the-air media activist, waxing and waning about diversity and quality, while the other hand's happily scooping up disaffected SMH and Age readers and pulling them into the Crikey fold. It'd be plausible, if not smart business, if Crikey's actual news output, as opposed to its commentary, which makes up about 90% of the daily email, was up to broadsheet standard - but it's not, and Beecher doesn't have the resources or reporting infrastructure in place to make it so. So next time you read, see or hear the worn-out Beecher argument that cost-cutting and heavy-handed government intervention is killing Australian journalism, just remember he's probably quite happy to see it all fall to pieces, just so long as he's there to pick up the mess.