Dear Gerry Harvey,
I can’t help noticing the huge role your business, Harvey Norman, plays in the Sydney Morning Herald nowadays. In fact, with the diminishing amount of actual journalism, and fewer journos to write stories, you may be the newspaper’s major source of content!
With this in mind, I feel I should alert you to a disturbing trend that has emerged over the past week. As you may know, the SMH editor, Bevan Shields, has chosen to end my 40 year relationship with the SMH with four weeks notice. This presumably has nothing to do with my ongoing concerns about entities such as the APY Artists Collective or the Powerhouse Museum, which he has treated with exceptional kindness. I take this as an indication of Bevan’s generous nature, as he is obviously unwilling to believe the worst, even when there is a mountain of damning evidence. His old-fashioned credo appears to be: “If you can’t say anything nice about an arts organisation, says nothing at all!”
And so it is, with much unease, that I have received an avalanche of mail this week from readers accusing the SMH of “dumbing down” and swearing they are cancelling their subscriptions. These hotheads seem to believe Bevan has done the paper a disservice by nixing the art column in favour of “new digital strategies”. Far be it from me to challenge his wisdom. He has, after all, been editor for almost three years.
Who could forget his heroic claims upon as ascending to the top job:
Under my leadership, the Herald will enhance its reputation for journalism that is independent and fearless but also fair and balanced… When we have a story we think you need to know about, we won’t hesitate to back it and stay on it. The Herald needs to stand for things.
Perhaps I simply chose the wrong stories that I thought the readers should know about. I wondered why we wouldn’t even start on certain stories, let alone stay on them. There is, however, no doubt that Bevan has stuck to his promise of ‘standing for things’. When he published eleven stories in two weeks saying how we need to support the National Gallery of Australia, his loyalties were laid on the table. At the time I wasn’t quite sure how such partisanship could be reconciled with being independent and fearless, fair and balanced, but in his insightful way, Bevan must have decided the NGA was simply perfect. No danger that anything could go wrong there!
On the whole, it’s remarkable how quickly he grasped the essential nature of art museums and other organisations that I have spent decades trying to understand. He also recognised that the vast amount of information I receive from contacts, insiders and industry people is not as valuable as the things he gets told at official dinners by the top brass, whose honesty and integrity is naturally beyond question. They knew they were wining and dining a man who is singularly resistant to flattery.
It is, therefore, with sadness, Gerry, that I must commiserate with you over this massive drop in subscriptions – and potential customers – in a single week. Please don’t blame it on Bevan. The good news is that while the SMH has been losing subscribers, I’ve had a sudden spike in subscriptions to my website. Therefore, I’m in a position to take the odd advertisement that might reach those readers who have fled the SMH. Even arty types need furniture and appliances. Being a sole trader I’m sure I can do you a better deal than my former employer. I don’t need much to replace the very small amount of money they paid for my columns, and I promise not to cut or remove anything without asking you first. I assume, at any rate, your ads won’t be saying anything that casts a shadow on the honour of our major art institutions or the APY Artists Collective.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
As for the postings this week, I’ve written up the amazing Iris van Herpen show at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. The review was intended for the SMH, but will appear instead on the news website, The Nightly. Why? Because they asked me to contribute – almost as soon as Bevan Shields had informed me I need not submit any more pieces to Ye Olde SMH. I’m grateful for this speedy request, which means I can maintain complete continuity with the art reviews.
The film being reviewed is The Substance – a wild ride that I couldn’t help liking, even though it will prompt some viewers to go looking for a stiff drink afterwards. I have to confess, anyone who spends as much time in the newspaper world as I have, gets to have a pretty strong stomach.
••••
But seriously, I’ve been quite overwhelmed by the number of messages I’ve received from friends and well-wishers – more than 200 on Friday alone, and they’ve kept coming all week. All I can say is a big “Thank-you” to the people who took the time to write to me – and often to the SMH as well. My former editor & colleagues have been put under siege by readers incensed by the loss of the regular art column. It remains to be seen what brilliant new plans will emerge from the wreckage! If you’d like to give them a few suggestions I’m repeating the email addresses from last week. The strategy, as usual, is to pretend nothing is happening, so don’t let them off the hook too quickly.
Bevan Shields, Editor, SMH
Melanie Kembrey, Spectrum editor
Luke McIlveen, Executive Editor, SMH
Tory Maguire, Managing Director, Publishing, NINE Media
Or the Board of NINE Media
https://www.nineforbrands.com.au/about/
Mailing address for all the above:
1 Denison Street, North Sydney, NSW, 2060
PO Box: Locked Bag 999, North Sydney, NSW 2059
T +61 2 9906 9999