On Saturday, four new (or reborn) newspapers flared to life from the dying embers of the print media – the first time in 25 years that we’ve seen such a glut of new products on the weekend.
There were fresh versions of the The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph, but most curiously an all-new offering called the The Saturday Paper, which has a “tenacious vision”, is “defiant of trends and conventional wisdom” and will give its writers “permission” to explore their material at length.
In creating the The Saturday Paper, publisher Morry Schwartz is betting against the direction of the newspaper industry. In repackaged their existing mastheads, the mainstream publishers are playing a more pragmatic game: hoping to attract reader attention; support revenue for their most profitable editions; and maybe, if it all works out, buy a bit more time.
Amanda Wilson, a former editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, says Fairfax’s move to compact paper on the weekend is “all about survival”.
“It’s still worthwhile producing a printed product for the moment because there are some advertising dollars to be made. That may not last much longer, but while there’s some revenue to be had, going compact to cut costs makes sense,” she told The New Daily.
The Saturday Paper is published on a website and mobile app, but what is most unusual is that it’s a real-life, page-turning, parchment-and-ink newspaper, the exact thing the other publishers are slowly managing out of existence.
The first issue was only delivered to Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, but Schwartz, who is also responsible for The Quarterly Essay and The Monthly, plans to extend its reach. He denies he is competing with the other weekenders, but is instead offering diversity.
“It’s not in the spirit of competition at all. It’s in the spirit of more voices, more choice,” says Mr Schwartz.
“Australia is a diverse culture, and it deserves a diverse press. I absolutely hope there’ll be more diversity, that other people come into the market, that Fairfax succeeds, that everyone succeeds, and that I do as well.”
The self-professed connoisseur of paper acknowledges his new offering is “both” a passion project and a money-making venture, but denies it is an indulgence.
“I never do anything that doesn’t have a real market because it’s meaningless,” says Mr Schwartz. “It must make a profit for it to be meaningful. People must want to have the product that you offer.”
How do the new offerings compare?
After looking at the first edition of The Saturday Paper, Amanda Wilson said it failed to mount a compelling argument for readers to choose it over the Fairfax and News Limited products.
“The launch issue was disappointing,” she said. “I doubt Fairfax can continue to publish two big weekend newspapers. But purely comparing the Saturday SMH with The Saturday Paper, there’s no contest. There’s more to read in the SMH.”
Gary Linnell, Director of News Media at Fairfax, says his company’s decision to go tabloid is the result of a year of “intensive research” into what his customers want – a compact newspaper with a broadsheet tone.
He is confident that the smaller Age and Herald can outmatch their new Saturday rival, which he says pales in comparison to the “muscle” of “a real newspaper”.
While the topical issue of Manus Island dominated the front page of The Saturday Paper, Mr Linnell pointed out that none of the content was fresh or breaking, and that the paper lacked a wide array of topics to snare all types of readers.
“Well, they actually don’t have reporters in Iran, [or] on Manus Island.
“Yes, they’re a competitor,” he says, “but it’s just a completely different sort of publication to what we’re trying to do.”
For his part, Garry Linnell agrees the newly compact weekend versions of his newspapers don’t represent any “turbo-charged renaissance of print” because “that’s probably not going to happen”.
Writing in the first edition of The Saturday Paper, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull quipped that “the rumours of the death of newspapers, even printed ones, appear to be exaggerated”.
But Mr Turnbull stopped short of saying printed newspapers were the way of the future. Not even Mr Schwartz, the proud owner of the world’s newest newspaper, would likely go that far.