Martin Whacks Fairfax

Matthew Ricketson of the Melbourne Age reports that "veteran broadcaster Ray Martin has accused commercial television networks and Fairfax Media, owner of The Age, of abandoning serious journalism - Martin hits out at TV networks and Fairfax cut-backs.

"Would the last journo out please turn off the studio lights?" he quipped to the audience at the annual Andrew Olle address in Sydney.

Too late Ray. The decline at Fairfax began long ago. It gathered momentum in 2002 with the appointment of a Middle East correspondent whose partisan views gave readers a highly slanted picture of the war between Israel and the Palestinians and precious little of the deadly conflicts brewing within Palestinian society during the past six or seven years. Things only got worse when Andrew Jaspan was given the gig as editor.

Abandoning serious journalism?

With O'Loughlin and Jaspan as the clown princes, Fairfax in Melbourne at least, was hardly an exponent of serious journalism, was it Ray?