Technology : Outsourced editing 2

Networks of outsourced sub-editors, linked by computers, could  edit most newspapers , according to Bruce Davidson, the CEO of Australian Associated Press (AAP).

In 1991, Davidson was a founder of Pagemasters,  now a subsidiary of AAP.  Pagemasters operations in Australia, New Zealand and the UK provided complete design, editing and production services for a range of metropolitan, regional and community newspapers and weekly and monthly magazines. It specialised in administering content online and on digital platforms.

It was this service which allowed Fairfax newspapers to outsource much of its sub-editing.

Technology : Editing before computers 1

Printers ink still runs in  George Richards’ veins.

George came from a family of newspapermen, with a father, Chas, an uncle Len, and a brother, Dick in the trade before him. George was a journalist in Sydney for more than half a century and in his time, he was a sub-editor, a London correspondent,  a Chief of staff, a cadet trainer and editor of Column 8 at  Fairfax newspapers. But George Richards would help change newspapers forever, introducing computer systems which would revolutionise journalism culture.

Technology : a very short history of journalists and computers 1

Australia’s most prestigious newspaper group, Fairfax Media, this week moved to sack about eighty experienced sub-editors to outsource production and cut costs. The move followed share price falls resulting from from weak advertising markets, currency fluctuations and the impact of the internet on readership. It may have long term implications for the journalism culture which has sustained quality Fairfax newspapers.

Newspapers, like the automatic wrist watch or the big gun battleship, were inventions of the mechanical age. Journalists were at the front end of an information assembly line where reporters collected the raw materials, sub-editors refined it, lay out staff boilerplated the words together and printers manufactured the industrial out put. Newspapers were called “the daily miracle”.