The Age is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and southern New South Wales. It is delivered both in print and digital formats. The newspaper shares some articles with its sister paper The Sydney Morning Herald.
The Age is considered a newspaper of record for Australia,[1] and has variously been known for its investigative reporting, with its journalists having won dozens of Walkley Awards, Australia's most prestigious journalism prize. As of March 2020, The Age had a monthly readership of 5.4 million. As of September 2024, this had fallen to 4.55 million.
History
Foundation
The Age was founded by three Melbourne businessmen: brothers John and Henry Cooke (who had arrived from New Zealand in the 1840s) and Walter Powell. The first edition appeared on 17 October 1854.
Syme family
The venture was not initially a success, and in June 1856 the Cookes sold the paper to Ebenezer Syme, a Scottish-born businessman, and James McEwan, an ironmonger and founder of McEwans & Co, for £2,000 at auction. The first edition under the new owners came out on 17 June 1856. From its foundation the paper was self-consciously liberal in its politics: "aiming at a wide extension of the rights of free citizenship and a full development of representative institutions", and supporting "the removal of all restrictions upon freedom of commerce, freedom of religion and—to the utmost extent that is compatible with public morality—upon freedom of personal action".[2]
Ebenezer Syme was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly shortly after buying The Age, and his brother David Syme soon came to dominate the paper, editorially and managerially. When Ebenezer died in 1860 David became editor-in-chief, a position he retained until his death in 1908, although a succession of editors did the day-to-day editorial work.
In 1882 The Age published an eight-part series written by journalist and future physician George E. Morrison, who had sailed, undercover, for the New Hebrides, while posing as crew of the brigantine slave ship, Lavinia, as it made cargo of Kanakas. By October the series was also being published in The Age's weekly companion magazine, the Leader. "A Cruise in a Queensland Slaver. By a Medical Student" was written in a tone of wonder, expressing "only the mildest criticism"; six months later, Morrison "revised his original assessment", describing details of the schooner's blackbirding operation, and sharply denouncing the slave trade in Queensland.
1960–1999
Oswald Syme retired in 1964 and his grandson Ranald Macdonald was appointed managing director at the age of 26 and two years later he appointed Graham Perkin as editor; to ensure that the 36-year-old Perkin was free of board influence, Macdonald took on the role of editor-in-chief, a position he held until 1970. Together they radically changed the paper's format and shifted its editorial line from rather conservative liberalism to a new "left liberalism" characterised by attention to issues such as race, gender, the disabled and the environment, as well as opposition to White Australia and the death penalty.
It also became more supportive of the Australian Labor Party after years of having usually supported the Coalition. The Liberal Premier of Victoria, Henry Bolte, subsequently called The Age "that pinko rag" in a view conservatives have maintained ever since. Former editor Michael Gawenda in his book American Notebook wrote that the "default position of most journalists at The Age was on the political Left".[5] In 1966, the Syme family shareholders joined with Fairfax to create a 50/50 voting partnership which guaranteed editorial independence and forestalled takeover moves from newspaper proprietors in Australia and overseas. This lasted for 17 years, until Fairfax bought controlling interest in 1972.
Perkin's editorship coincided with Gough Whitlam's reforms of the Labor Party, and The Age became a key supporter of the Whitlam government, which came to power in 1972. Contrary to subsequent mythology, however, The Age was not an uncritical supporter of Whitlam, and played a leading role in exposing the Loans Affair, one of the scandals which contributed to the demise of the Whitlam government.
2000–present
In 2003, The Age opened a new printing centre at Tullamarine. The headquarters moved again in 2009 to Collins Street opposite Southern Cross station. Since acquisition by Nine Entertainment, the headquarters moved to the former's 717 Bourke Street.
In 2004, editor Michael Gawenda was succeeded as editor by British journalist Andrew Jaspan, who was in turn replaced by Paul Ramadge in 2008.[7]
In February 2007, The Age's editorial section argued that Australian citizen David Hicks should be released as a prisoner from Guantanamo Bay, stating that Hicks was no hero and "probably downright deluded and dangerous" but the case for releasing him was just, given he was being held without charge or trial.[8][9][10]
In 2009, The Age suspended its columnist Michael Backman
Investigative reporting
The Age has been known for its tradition of investigative reporting. In 1984, the newspaper reported what became known as "The Age Tapes" affair, which revealed recordings made by police of alleged corrupt dealings between organised crime figures, politicians and public officials and which sparked the Stewart Royal Commission.[18]
The paper's extensive reporting on malpractice in Australia's banking sector led to a Royal Commission being announced by the Turnbull government into the financial services industry,[19] and with The Age's journalist Adele Ferguson awarded the Gold Walkley.[20]
A series of stories in The Age between 2009 and 2015 about alleged corruption involving subsidiaries of Australia's central bank, the Reserve Bank, led to Australia's first ever prosecutions of companies and businessman for foreign bribery.[21]
"Resolve" polling
The Resolve Political Monitor (RPM) is conducted by Resolve Strategic on behalf of SMH and The Age, with data collected monthly from a national sample, and the results published in both papers. The data is collected via 400 random telephone interviews and 600 online interviews, with a notional error margin of around 2.2%.[24] Run by Jim Reed, the polling began in 2021.[25][26] The poll is frequently quoted by other outlets, such as The Conversation, along with other polls such as Newspoll and Roy Morgan polls.[27]
Headquarters
The Age's purpose-built former headquarters, named Media House, was located at 655 Collins Street. After acquisition by Nine, The Age moved to 717 Bourke Street to be co-located with its new owners.[28]
Masthead
The Age's masthead has received a number of updates since 1854. The most recent update to the design was made in 2002. The current masthead features a stylised version of the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom and "The Age" in Electra bold type. The coat of arms features the French motto Dieu et mon droit (lit. 'God and my right'). According to The Age's art director, Bill Farr: "No one knows why they picked the royal crest. But I guess we were a colony at the time, and to be seen to be linked with the Empire would be a positive thing." The original 1854 masthead included the Colony of Victoria crest. In 1856, that crest was removed and in 1861, the royal coat of arms was introduced. This was changed again in 1967, with the shield and decoration altered and the lion crowned. In 1971, a bold typeface was introduced and the crest shield rounded and less ornate. In 1997, the masthead was stacked and contained in a blue box (with the logo in white). In 2002, in conjunction with an overall revamp of the paper, the masthead was redesigned in its present form.[29]
Readership
As of March 2020, The Age had a monthly readership of 5.4 million.[30] As of September 2024, this had fallen to 4.55 million.[31]
Awards
Roster of journalists
Current journalists
The below is a list of The Age's current journalists.
Photography
Though Hugh Bull was appointed the newspaper's first full-time photographer as early as 1927,[40] it was comparatively late in the history of The Age that photographs were used on the front page as a matter of course,[41] but they became, especially under the editorship of Graham Perkin and his successors,[42] a vital part of its identity, with picture credits for staff photographers, and their images, often uncropped, run across several columns.
A photographer of the rival Herald Sun Jay Town distinguishes the 'house style'; "There's a big difference between the set-up, cheesy, tight and bright Herald Sun-type [photograph] and then the nice, broadsheet picture–well, back when the Age was a fantastic broadsheet that could really showcase their photographers' work."[43] This distinction was to start to break down in 1983 with the pooling of photographers across all Fairfax publications, and the paper's change in format from broadsheet to 'compact' in 2007, preceding move to online publication and subscription; 2014 saw Fairfax Media shedding 75 per cent of its photographers.[44]
Ownership
In 1972, John Fairfax Holdings bought a majority of David Syme's shares,[47] and in 1983 bought out all the remaining shares.[48]
On 26 July 2018, Nine Entertainment Co. and Fairfax Media, the parent company of The Age, announced they agreed on terms for a merger between the two companies to become Australia's largest media company. Nine shareholders will own 51.1 per cent of the combined entity, and Fairfax shareholders will own 48.9 per cent.[49]
Printing
The Age was published from its office in Collins Street until 1969, when the newspaper moved to 250 Spencer Street. In July 2003, the $220 million five-storey Age Print Centre was opened at Tullamarine.[50] The Centre produced a wide range of publications for both Fairfax and commercial clients. Among its stable of daily print publications are The Age, the Australian Financial Review and the Bendigo Advertiser. The building was sold in 2014, and printing was to be transferred to "regional presses".[51]
Editors
Endorsements
See also
- Journalism in Australia
- List of newspapers in Australia
Further reading
- Don Hauser, The Printers of the Streets and Lanes of Melbourne (1837–1975) Nondescript Press, Melbourne 2006.
- Merrill, John C. and Harold A. Fisher. The World's Great Dailies: Profiles of Fifty Newspapers (1980) pp. 44–50
- C. E. Sayers, David Syme, Cheshire 1965
External links
- about.theage.com.au – The Age corporate website
- inside.theage.com.au – The Age information hub
- Sir Geoffrey Syme "Sir Geoffrey Syme Journalist & Managing Editor of The Age from 1908 until 1942"
- The Age, Google news archive. PDF files of 32,807 issues, dating from 1854 to 1989.
References
- The Broadview Guide to Writing: A Handbook for Students Broadview Press, 30 May 2017, retrieved 9 March 2020^
- The History of The Age About us, Fairfax Media, 2011, retrieved 5 July 2011^
- Brooke Kroeger. Undercover Reporting: The Truth About Deception Northwestern University Press, 31 August 2012, retrieved 9 January 2020