Fairfax should reinstate Walkley funding
By John M Green
September 5, 2008
This is the text of an opinion piece that former Macquarie Banker John Green submitted to The AFR and The SMH about Fairfax's decision to axe its Walkley sponsorship. Green has since stepped in to fill the breach.
Shareholders of Fairfax Media may nod cautiously at its restructure plan. But they should shake their heads with dismay that the national media group is axing its support for the prestigious Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism.
The Walkleys are to Australian journalism what the Pulitzers are to American journalism and the Oscars are to their movies. For journalists, a Walkley is recognition by their industry peers they've attained the pinnacle of excellence in a particular journalistic field. What's crucial and special about the Walkleys is they are bestowed by the industry not by any one self-promoting proprietor.
In place of continuing to support the Walkleys, Fairfax management propose to launch in-house excellence awards. This is both good and bad.
What's good is that Fairfax wishes to recognise and applaud excellence among its own people. Their rival, News Limited, already does that for its people. But in-house awards can't get close to matching the stature or impact—the thrill—of a widely respected honour from industry peers. Thus, News Limited also supports the Walkleys.
What's bad is the symbolism when the country's oldest national media group apparently believes it can, without consequences, casually dismiss a national media institution that is widely recognised as representing the high water mark of Australian media excellence. It is unlikely Fairfax intends to weaken the Walkleys, but its action is likely to bear that outcome.
If Kevin Rudd announced the Australian Government had axed its support for the Order of Australia, but still wished it well, what would we think?
As a company director, it's not my practice to speak out about the internal decisions of other firms. As a business commentator, I avoid writing on specific corporate circumstances. But this case is special.
Whether Fairfax's decision to wave off the Walkleys arises from short-sightedness or a simple mistake is irrelevant. The decision is wrong. And Fairfax would be applauded for reversing it. I have written to the Fairfax board to urge them to do that.
Meanwhile, to shore up the Walkleys void left by Fairfax, my family has stepped in to replace Fairfax's funding. The award we are sponsoring is Newspaper Feature Writing.
Fairfax has previously sponsored the International Journalism Award, awarded in honour of the late Robert Haupt & Peter Smark. We intentionally chose not to sponsor that award to encourage Fairfax to reinstate its own support for it.
We're backing the Walkleys through our family's new book publishing venture, Pantera Press, which we're aiming to launch in 2009 and where we have a ‘profits for philanthropy' motivation.
Fairfax, properly, has a shareholder profit objective. Using shareholder funds to continue supporting the Walkleys and the vitality of the media industry is entirely consistent with that.
ends
Radio interviews
Listen to John Green's September 4 discussion with Deborah Cameron on 702 ABC Sydney and check out The World Today's story as well.
And here is the press release which triggered the media interest.
* John M. Green is a company director and a writer, and was formerly an investment banker and a lawyer.
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