The company Gina keeps

If Gina Rinehart ever extracts the digit and actually takes charge of Fairfax her very first initiative as a proprietor should be to fire all those responsible for the Silly and Phage opinion pages -- not because they are irredeemably polluted with green-left groupthink, which they are, but because  none of those quality journalists seems capable of looking beyond the nearest academic enclave when recruiting contributors. The first casualty of this fixation is wit, of which there is precious little in either newspaper, and the second is the elevation of ideology gussied up as rational thought. These deficiencies seem never to be noticed by Fairfax editors, who one guesses bear a striking resemblance to those rows of open-mouthed clowns in carnival sideshows. You know the sort, forever swivelling side-to-side, always in sync with their similarly oscillating colleagues.

The Age's chief gobbler of thoughts more empty than any ping pong ball has today tapped the Parkville Asylum's Brendan Gleeson, professor of urban policy studies and director of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, who thinks it is a terrible idea to build a tunnel connecting the Eastern and Westgate freeways. As you might imagine, anyone who heads an institute with the word "sustainable" in its title would say that, in this instance wrapping his personal disdain for cars and the freedom they confer in the garments of, ahem, economic analysis, purported polling and professorial insight.

What Gleeson doesn't mention, nor did the editor who published his thoughts, is that bottom-line considerations he cites are but waving branches above the rather less apparent tap root of his objections. You will need to survey his output to see where he is coming from, and it is most certainly not Doncaster en route by private vehicle to Werribee, otherwise he would be promoting the tunnel for all his ARC grants and sinecures are worth (a very pretty penny, that).

The thing to understand about Gleeson is that when cars go whizzing by his Malvern Star he thinks not of others' convenience but of class struggle and injustice. Indeed, amongst his grant-funded scribblings, concern for "the disadvantaged" and their alleged lack of personal mobility features prominently:

The problem of transport-related social exclusion has formed the basis for a great deal of transport policy development in the United Kingdom in the past decade. More recently, the problem of transport-mediated social exclusion has been investigated in Australia through notions of forced car ownership... 

Unless you are a Fairfax editorial page director, you will get the picture: If we are to have a just and more equitable society, better-off citizens must be forced to get around on bicycles and public transport, which Gaia wants with all heart:

...the east-west link scorns the urgent need to decarbonise our cities in the face of a species emergency, global warming. Other cities and nations will judge us severely for building this smog factory in a time of planetary crisis.

Come on, Gina, stop buggarising around. If you're not going to take full charge of Fairfax, then dump your holding. Even a minority interest in this stupid, stupid company demeans your good name and reputation.

Death's dowry

Archeologists must have a term for the accumulation of bright and shiny things intended to equip the departed with all the luxuries and necessities required for a comfortable afterlife. They are know as grave goods when dug up, but what they are called when the future star of Time Team's excavations still had flesh on his or her bones is anyone's guess. Death's dowry, perhaps.

Whatever the official term, The Age has added another adornment to its imminent epitaph, having just won 2013's Newspaper of The Year, which it announced on this morning's front page beneath a headline proclaiming that is Number One. In addition to being unable to report the news without bias, it seems The Age is also innumerate, as the steaming pile of its daily offerings much more closely resembles number two. 

Here is how the folks at the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association explained their logic (plus some incidental observations).

Fairfax Media newspaper The Age has been crowned the 90,000+ circulation Newspaper of the Year, concluding the 2013 Future Forum.

It is still selling more than 90,000! At the current rate of shrinkage, the Age   will be ineligible for this category by the end 2015. Allowing that it survives that long, of course.

The award topped off an impressive year for The Age, where it thrived under a tough climate for newspapers around the world.

The PANPA people must have been thoroughly intoxicated when that release was drafted, or have the Macquarie Dictionary people redefined "thrived" to mean the 27,000 fewer daily copies sold this year than last.

“Difficult commercial decisions were embraced with confidence by the editorial team,” judges said.

The Professor once "embraced with confidence" a firm and apparently eager woman, only to be knocked silly by her boyfriend. For the Age, substitute "reality" for the wiggly young thing's beau.

“Impressive results showed the success of always placing journalism first and foremost.

Yep, they really were on the squirt.

“The executives and all the teams at The Age deserve this to be their year.”

And it will be their year, too! Nothing boosts annual earnings so much as a big, fat, juicy redundancy cheque.

The awards ceremony topped off the 2013 Future Forum, a gathering of some of the most brilliant minds across the newspaper industry, after two days of interactive workshops, lectures and presentations.

"Brilliant minds", eh? Let's see how brilliantly those minds shine when Abbott PM ends all Federal Government advertising in Old Media rags, which will serve them right.

Centuries from now, when the Age's barrow is excavated, the PANPA trophy will suggest it went to its grave respected and beloved. As long as the undertakers don't include Fairfax's latest numbers amongst the grave goods, that is

Quality Journalism Rewarded

FAIRFAX MEDIA (FXJ) dipped briefly below 40 cents a few minutes ago. Good.

No new owner, not even even Ron Walker, could do such a bad job of steering Melbourne's only alternative to the Herald Sun's daily diet of kittens and Collingwood.

And another thing: Neither Walker nor Ms Rinehart would dream of paying themselves the $50,000 a week that CEO Greg Hywood has been pocketing while ushering staffers out the door.

WHOOPS:  There are doubts amongst commenters that Hywood collects $50,000 a week -- and it has to be admitted that those doubts are justified. From The Australian of August 19:

The company's remuneration report for last year shows that Mr Hywood picked up a base salary of $1,178,570, including a cash bonus of $290,000. However, the cash bonus Mr Hywood was in line to receive this year was worth considerably more because he was acting chief executive for part of 2011, being installed as the permanent chief in March last year.

Divided by 52 weeks, that $1.17 million sum comes to a paltry $22,664.80 per week.

It Was the Crap, Stupid. It Still Is

ON RADIO NATIONAL this morning there was an extended report on what went wrong at Fairfax, the gist being that the company stuck its head in the sand while Internet ads ate its lunch. No doubt that observation is valid, but it is only a partial explanation, as the broadcast comments of a former head of the publisher’s online unit establish beyond doubt. Apologies for not taking down the speaker’s name (Higgins?) or the direct quotation, but the Billabong’s toaster had just set off the smoke alarm and it was very difficult to catch the finer details. What he said is still worth paraphrasing because it points to the bigger problem that has driven Fairfax to the very brink of death.

All Mr Unintelligible’s approaches to management, all his urging that the Web was the future, fell on deaf ears, he lamented. There he was, blazing a trail into the e-future and eager to do wonderful things, and the bosses simply would not listen.

And those wonderful things that were achieved, what were they? He did not mention it, but one notable innovation was the promotion of Margo Kingston and the original Wed Diary as the faces of Fairfax’s presence on the Internet, and we all know what that produced: The Jews run the media, the Bali bombing was not terrorism but an exploding gas bottle, Australia was helping to liberate Iraq because it wanted access to the Yank’s anti-gravity machine, unflushed toilets are saving the planet. They were just some elements of Fairfax’s addled bid to make its bones on the Web.

When you get past the bitter griping about an ex-employer’s lack of vision, the fact remains that Fairfax laid itself low by packaging crap in industrial quantities, both in pixels and on paper, and promoting those who could not tell the difference. It is that simple.

Who's Buying?

IT IS happening again with Fairfax stock. As noted earlier, once again FXJ slumped at the start of  trading, then clawed its way northward. And again, it's the volume that is fascinating -- almost 30 million shares changing hands as of 3.45pm, well over twice the three-month average.

Is Mrs. Rinehart churning stock to let Corbett & Co. know she can dump the lot and ruin them at a moment's notice?

Is someone else taking a position, perhaps buy-out artists or a Rinehart ally?

Whatever the truth, it must be obvious by now to Roger Corbett that he and his board are, to all intents purposes, thoroughly stuffed. The market doesn't trust him to lift his company from the mire of so many years' poor stewardship. Nor does it understand how a push to digital will generate profits when online ad prices continue to decline and, even with the closure of its prime printing plants, most of the costly Old Media infrastructure remains by necessity in place. So what can Corbett hope to gain by delaying capitulation?

Well, there is one possible explanation: Could it be that Corbett & Co are hoping a staff revolt in defence of, ahem, quality journalism will prompt the Gillardian rabble to fling a poultice of public monies their way? Quite apart from the delicious irony of staffers being the potential salvation of a management that will sack large numbers in any case, there is Prime Minister Yabby's* proven record of squandering billions on everything from web sites for monitoring grocery rices to pouring additional funds into TV-WOG. While she is most definitely sly, the Yabby is far from smart, so there might just be enough wit behind that Mr Squiggle nose to realise her party is going to be out of power for a long, long time, so why not fund a trust or somesuch to support a permanent mouthpiece for everything that moistens a Bunswick bicycle with righteous excitement?

The end is coming, and here is another irony. When they sacked Larry, Curly and Mo-ette yesterday from the editors' offices of the Silly and the Phage, Fairfax finally did the right and sensible thing. Same with the announced switch to tabloid format, tardy as its implementation may be. As for Greg Hywood, well he can't actually believe, as he told Neil Mitchell, that an unyielding diet of warmism, common room cant, apologies for a favoured government's incompetence and a selective eye for corruption has had nothing to do with the Age's alienation from the city and readership it once served.

Gillard's boys -- "man" ill-suits the snivelling likes of Combet, Burke, Conroy --  have variously said there will be no Fairfax bailout. Then again, didn't the Yabby say something similar about a carbon tax?

* Yabby: A creature mostly red, happiest in the muck, with the meat in its tail and the crap in its head.

FXJ Stock Watch

AS OF 11.30 this morning Fairfax shares were down another tick, to 57 cents.  Watch the volume through the remainder of the session. If previous patterns repeat themselves, the volume of shares changing hands will rise in the late afternoon and the price will return to somewhere near where it started.

Someone is buying on the dips, or so it appears. Given that Mrs Rinehart is very close to her 19.9% threshold, can they all be going to her?

Wouldn't it be interesting if she has an ally or two taking positions in FXJ. By the way, what has Clive Palmer been up to lately?

UPDATE: According to a news flash on 3AW, Phage editor Paul Ramadge is just now informing staff that he is standing down. It must gratify the newspaper's anti-Rinehart activists to see their captain  first into the lifeboat.

UPDATE II: Heads rolling at the Silly as well. 

A Fairfax Whisper

A PROFESSIONAL journalist whispers via email that Gina Rinehart may not find herself quite so unloved as the rallies of aggrieved journalists outside the Silly and Phage suggest. While asking not to be quoted directly, the Billabong’s correspondent makes the following points:

1/ Cronyism is rife. He cites as one example the fact that, while the Age has recruited very few faces over the past five years, one of those was an individual whose misadventures on assignment saw him fall out of favour. After a period of well-paid exile at Fairfax, during which time his contributions to the paper were negligible, the blow-in returned to his former home.

2/ Editors don’t edit. To use the correspondent’s term, editors “are arbitrators not leaders”. When Bob Carter was permitted to appear in The Age, the resident warmists demanded that the skeptic’s contribution to the carbon-tax debate be mitigated by an immediate blitz of alarmist reports. Through impotence or indifference, the counter-assault was given “run of paper” by editors who preferred an easy life to the effort of striving for balance.

3/  Opposition to Rinehart is most fervent amongst those with the most to lose. By the correspondent’s reckoning, the dominant cliques at The Age and Sunday Age are well paid and have come to regard financial security as no less than their august due. When Gina arrives, their days will be numbered, so why not lash out?

As the ABC continues to serve as a megaphone for Fairfax’s anti-Gina faction, the correspondent suggests taking assertions of a unified opposition with a large bag of salt. The thing to notice, the writer advises, is not the number of people waving placards and sizzling their sausages outside Media House but the number of Age employees who stay away from those demonstrations. The recent protest during Fairfax’s 36-hour strike brought out no more than a third of the editorial staff, he says. The others voted with unmoving feet for both change and Mrs Rinehart by staying home.

If true, it is encouraging news for Melbournians who would like to see a newspaper with the potential to once again serve the truth and its community. Oh, and one other thing worth noting: the correspondent insists that plans to re-make the Age and Silly as tabloids be brought forward, giving the Herald Sun and Telegraph no opportunity to mount their defences.

   

Gurgle, Gurgle, 'round The Plughole

ANYONE who has followed the decline of Fairfax Media over the past few years will have been waiting for the day when the slow, inexorable decline goes into free fall. That moment may today be closer, with the stock at one point this morning descending to 69.5 cents, just a cent-and-a-half above its all-time low. As of 2.30pm it had clawed its way back to 70.5 cents, which still left it down almost 3% on the day so far. What makes this interesting is the volume, with some 20.5 million shares changing hands. That is roughly twice the average daily tally and it suggests AFX is being dumped.

What happens when the stock drops through that 69 cent barrier? Only time will tell, but one strong possibility will be that Gina Reinhart’s bid for one or two board seats is going to get a rocket-powered boost. How can Greg Hywood & Co look their largest stockholder in the eye and tell her to get lost, especially when their own tenure has seen a downhill run all the way?

The luvvie left imagines Reinhart wishes to call the editorial shots -- no doubt an example of projection, as that is what it does when given half a chance. But perhaps Reinhart sees things with a greater clarity, realising that it is the nonsense Fairfax publishes which has done so much to limit its market, sales and stock price. Fix the product and she might just turn the business side around.

Readers sometimes write to the Billabong to ask after the Professor’s peculiar interest in Fairfax. The answer is simple, and it is two words: Rupert Murdoch.

Several months ago, News Limited made Glen Milne disappear. Phhhtt! and he was gone – and all because, or so it would seem, those who run the company perceived it a better policy to avoid further aggravating our for-the-moment Prime Minister and her rabble. Murdoch, of whom many good things can be said, insisted in London last night that he neither bows to nor intimidates politicians, but Milne’s banishment puts the lie to his words. So, too, does the Herald & Weekly Times’ shameful decision not to appeal Andrew Bolt’s conviction for hurting the feelings of a few sensitive and well-connected souls.

A second media organisation, even an imperfect one, would go some way toward to boosting the cause of freedom of speech. That is why a healthier Fairfax is worth the effort of desiring.

UPDATE: Daily volume is now at 26 million and the stock has dropped again, down to 70 cents.
 

Gina, start making a fuss. Given that you bought into Fairfax at 81 cents, these jokers have already cost you around $20 million.

UPDATE II: Bad numbers all over.

A Day For Fertiliser

ALL THIS rain and lovely climate we've been having here in Melbourne, well the garden has gone berserk, so when connectivity went all wobbly in the late morning there was no excuse for leaving the wheelbarrow in the shed one more day. The place now looks quite spiffy, all mulched and trimmed, and just to cap off a day of exertion, five loads of laundry wait to be folded. Underpants will very soon be back in fashion at the Billabong.

As for others' laundry, let's just say some fresh, clean sets of smalls would seem to be called for.

At Fairfax, it was news of a massive profit slump which must have prompted immediate incontinence. That, and  the sotto voce announcement, largely unheard amidst the analysts' laments for a dying business, that the Age will no longer be distributed to "remote" areas. As the newspaper's comfort zone apparently runs no further than Elwood to Northcote, anyone in Preston or beyond will now be forced to settle for the daily edition of El Bairak.

Expect the Age's new distribution map to be finalised shortly, just as soon as executives decide if it should include Altona, Point Cook and Lara, where one of the fourteen full-time reporters covering all the good things about wind turbines once had a flat tyre. When rescued, she reported observing people who spoke English and might enjoy gravalax, but management remains unconvinced, according to sources inside Media House. The tentative plan allows a boutique delivery of Melbourne's journal of record only to the Werribee electorate office of the current prime minister, the one person in that suburb deemed sufficiently evolved to share the paper's perspective on things.

And while fresh Cottontails are being broken out, the big girls at News Ltd could certainly use some. Last year it was Glenn Milne's ouster for daring to wonder if a 35-year-old lawyer really should have figured out she was sleeping with a shakedown artist, the distraction of all those pretty, free frocks from Town Mode notwithstanding.  Before that, the lacklustre handling of Andrew Bolt's defence, followed by the shameful decison not to appeal Judge Mordy's abomination of a ruling. News is spending millions to defend or settle cases arising from the News of the World scandal. Could it not have found some small change to fight for free speech?

And today, well there was a fresh pong of compliant fecklessness about News when the Australian published the apology of a reporter who regretted being verbally aggressive with our PM. Is News Ltd getting twitchy about the Media Inquiry's upcoming report and recommendations? One would hope not, but there is a developing pattern of bahaviour -- and that is why all who care about free speech and the open contest of ideas should feel their own bowels begin to creep.

Imagine, and it is not hard, that Fairfax goes to the wall. What are we left with? A company that runs scared when government scowls. God help us if that is the case. Fairfax does not deserve to be preserved on the strength of recent achievements, which are negligible, but for its potential to once again hold our leaders' feet to the fire. Who knows, that approach might even sell a few copies in those "remote" areas the paper no longer sees as being worth its while.

Some Free Advice For Senator Bernardi

Dear Senator,

The next time you receive a when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife call from a Fairfax or ABC reporter, tell them you are just a little busy and ask that their questions be submitted in writing. Promise you will respond immediately, which is only good manners. Further, advise the reporter that, while you are happy to have your words editted for the dead tree edition, you expect your comments to be published in full on the website, where space is not an issue.

Next, post the questions and your answers on your own parliamentary website, not bothering to wait until the reporter has written his or her story. This will not only ruin whatever dubious scoop the reporter is pushing, it will make them think twice before again trying to stitch you up.

Finally, if you give an interview on camera or if the reporter is simply operating an audio recorder, make your own copy and post that as well.

The key is to respond immediately and without mercy to any mistakes. Do not go cap in hand to the reporter and ask for the record to be corrected. It will not happen, so you need to set things straight -- and to do so right away. Bloggers call this "fisking" and there is no reason why parliamentarians should not do it too.

If you find yourself too busy to follow this prescription, hire someone who can. And if you have a PR person who believes in making nice with reporters, write out their severance cheque and show them the door. The press is your enemy -- yes, even the Murdoch press -- so invest no effort in schmoozing. It will not bring the slightest reward.

Fact is, you are never going to get a fair shake. Today's "expose" of "secret" domain registrations and "Tea Party-style" activism should be all the proof you need.

Oh, and one other thing. When the Abbott government is elected, immediately suspend all government advertising in Old Media outlets. Nobody reads those display ads, anyway, and the charges ultimately pay the salaries of people whose only goal is spread distortions.

Best of luck,

Bunyip.

Stenography Subsidy Needed

THE big question: Will Fairfax go belly-up before Bob Brown’s media inquiry can pump an infusion of public funds into a poorly run company’s depleted coffers?

With the stock now at 75 cents and falling, it is going to be touch and go.

Cash For Comment?

YOU KNEW this was coming: Some newspapers are fading and failing, therefore the taxpayer must dig in to support “quality journalism”. Don’t laugh, that notion is out there and gaining momentum, with the most overt example so far appearing this morning in The Phage, which in the interest of full disclosure might also have mentioned its own dire circumstances. If public money is to be distributed, the Age will be first in line.

Cynics may see this as reward for service. Try naming a more dutiful propagandist for Labor than Michelle Grattan or, for that matter, the entire choir of her Fairfax colleagues, from Peter Hartcher to Laura Tingle. They are nothing if not devoted, no slight upward twitch in the polls ever being allowed to pass without the observation that the longed for Gillard renaissance is finally underway. Or see if you can name more devoted advocates of a carbon tax than the childlike Adam Morton. With such quality journalists winnowing their paper’s readership to a hard, green core of sprout munchers, precisely the sort of people advertisers do not want in their stores, surely The Phage’s slow suicide has earned Canberra’s intervention?

That is one theory and a good one. But there is another, less obvious element in the push for public funding, and it hangs on a far more practical consideration. When The Phage folds there will be insufficient desk space at the ABC to accommodate all those Fairfax refugees. Morton’s credulity on climate matters will probably be enough to score him a spot, and Melissa Fyfe’s jog down the entire East Coast to promote nicer weather will also carry much weight. But the rest? They would be left to mill about on the footpath outside the ABC’s HQ at Southbank, desperate as Depression wharfies in their hope that the national broadcaster will find a day’s work for reporters prepared on the strength of no evidence at all to accuse MPs of raping women on their office desks.

As Gillard sinks ever lower, expect to hear more, much more, about the public’s moral obligation to keep the otherwise unemployable employed. Time is tight. Fairfax needs to get its snout in the trough before Tony Abbott takes up residence in the Lodge, so expect any inquiry into the media to begin as exercise in bastardry against News Limited and end with a blank cheque for Fairfax. You can bet on it.

Ssssshhh! Don't Mention The Whore

UNCOMFORTABLE, that is how quite a few senior Fairfax journalists and editors must be feeling just at the moment. No, not because of the stock price. That would be a bit of a worry, but as private enterprise and the profit motive have always been mysteries to the folk who presume to lecture others about the need for higher taxes, not much of one. The absence of fair trade coffee in The Phage cafeteria? That would be a matter of the gravest concern, but it isn’t what really must be gnawing at the likes of Michelle Grattan, Peter Hartcher and Michael Gordon, whose shared dilemma is whether or not to fully report a story that could well demolish their PM and her government.

They have easy access to all the details, as their company lawyers know all the facts, and somewhere deep inside that collective Fairfax consciousness there must be a vestigal voice urging that trio and others to make amends, to sit down at the keyboard and tap it all out. That’s what journalists are supposed to do, right? Watergate, the Murdoch hacking scandal – they were stories where dogged reporters spoke truth to power, or so pop mythology insists. So far, however, the Fairfax crew has resisted the urge to commit anything on this matter to print, despite the ease with which one of their number might craft a front-page scoop. Perhaps they are too busy celebrating Gillard’s newfound “traction” courtesy of a meagre 4% bounce in the polls.

The story that could change a government is, of course, the ongoing misadventures of Craig Thomson, whose amorous antics with prostitutes and union funds have the potential to prompt a by-election. Since Thomson holds the seat of  Dobell by less than 5 points he is as good as gone, likewise the shambolic government  of which he is member.

Fairfax could hasten that process with a simple story explaining why Thomson's account of the libel case he filed against the news organisation is at odds with their own version of events.

According to Fairfax, Cameron dropped his action days before it was due to go before a judge. According to Cameron he did so only after a settlement was reached. He has repeated that claim on numerous occasions over the past two months and not once has a Fairfax voice disputed assertions like this: “Over a month ago I reached a confidential agreement with Fairfax. This was reported in the press and the agreement filed in court as a settlement of my matters and again the legal matters where withdrawn. As with the HSU settlement I was very happy with the outcome.”

If Fairfax’s political correspondents were not posturing apologists for Gillard, one would by now have penned a story saying that Cameron is no less fast and loose with the truth about that aborted libel action than with his marriage vows. If there was a settlement, surely it cannot have been more than one party’s agreement to withdraw in return for the other’s pledge not to laugh too loudly.

But Fairfax is apparently holding its tongue while Cameron leads his constituents to believe that he has achieved some sort of vindication at Fairfax’s expense.

What sort of a company allows its good name to be thus sullied? A craven and cowardly one offering fealty to a appalling government, not to the truth.

UPDATE: Radio station 2UE interviews a forensic document examiner who says in not so many words that Thomson is a liar.  Thanks to Catallaxy for the link. There is more on Thomson here. 

NOTE: Typo fixed re., "Cameron". which should have been "Thomson".

Put To Bed? Not Quite -- Part II

NO SOONER had the previous post gone up than the indefatigable Andrew Landeryou posted a Thomson email in which the Member for Dobell once again accuses Fairfax of spreading lies about him and, once again, enlists learned friends to restore his tarnished honour.

Fairfax says the defamation action was "withdrawn". Thomson says it was "settled" a month ago and he is "very happy" with the result.

Here is Thomson's letter as it appears at VexNews:

From: Thomson, Craig (MP)
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 12:39 PM
To: Thomson, Craig (MP)
Subject: Fairfax v Thomson 
Dear Colleagues
I am writing to you as you may have seen reports in the Fairfax press regarding my defamation action. The article was totally inaccurate and wrong. The facts are as follows:
1. I took defamation action against the Health Services Union and separate action against Fairfax;
2. The HSU settled on a confidential basis with me some six months ago. Whilst it was a confidential settlement it was one that I was very happy with and as a consequence withdrew my legal action;
3. Over a month ago I reached a confidential agreement with Fairfax. This was reported in the press and the agreement filed in court as a settlement of my matters and again the legal matters where withdrawn. As with the HSU settlement I was very happy with the outcome.
4. An AEC investigation cleared me of the allegations raised by Fairfax regarding electoral spending
5. I have always strenuously denied the allegations made against me and I continue to do so.
It is clear that Fairfax have both defamed me again and breached and misrepresented a confidential deed that settled the matter between me and Fairfax. I have now been referred this matter again to my lawyers.
I thank you for your continued support in this matter and hope this corrects the grossly inaccurate and misleading reporting in the Fairfax media.
Yours faithfully
Craig Thomson

Somewhere, either at Fairfax World Headquarters or in an electorate office on the Central Coast, someone is:

(a) lying
(b) a great disappointment to Mum
(c) drinking the bong water
(d) unfit to remain in current employment