Canberra Insider on the lamentable Ian Law

There are more concerns being raised about the suitability of Ian Law to be the chief executive of West Australian Newspapers, as this anonymous contribution from a Canberra Times employee would attest. And check out some of the excellent new letters at the bottom.

The other thing about Law which the journos at the West Oz should know about is the small matter of his being named by the ACCC in a nasty little tale of Rural Press misusing its power in rural South Australian newspapers.

I have copied a press release from the ACCC website for you:

ACCC Alleges Market Sharing Agreement Between Regional Newspapers Result of Misuse of Market Power

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has filed proceedings in the Federal Court, Adelaide, against Rural Press Limited, its subsidiary Bridge Printing Office Pty Ltd, its employees Mr Ian Law and Mr Trevor McAuliffe, Waikerie Printing House Pty Limited and its directors, Mr Paul Taylor and Mr Darnley Taylor.

Rural Press, through its subsidiary, publishes The Murray Valley Standard in the Murray Bridge district of South Australia. Waikerie Printing House publishes The River News in the adjoining Waikerie district of the Riverland.

In mid 1997 Waikerie Printing House extended the coverage of its newspaper to include the Mannum area, which had previously only been covered by The Murray Valley Standard.

The ACCC alleges that Rural Press threatened Waikerie Printing House that it would introduce an opposition newspaper into the Riverland unless Waikerie Printing House withdrew The River News from the Mannum area. It is alleged that, in doing so, Rural Press, and/or its subsidiary, misused its market power in the market for regional newspapers in the Murray Bridge district in breach of section 46 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

The ACCC alleges that as a result of that conduct, Waikerie Printing House entered into an arrangement or understanding with Rural Press and/or its subsidiary to withdraw The River News from the Mannum area. It is alleged that the companies entered into a contract, arrangement or understanding in breach of section 45 of the Act.

The ACCC is seeking injunctions, declarations and penalties. A directions hearing has been set down for 9 a.m. 30 July 1999.

ends

The PANPA Bulletin last year carried a full report of the outcome of these proceedings and Law did not come out of it smelling of roses. I did have the article in question but now have lost it. Unfortunately my web browser won’t load www.panpa.org.au but with a bit of digging you might be able to find it.

I remember one incident in the Canberra Times shortly after Rural Press bought us where Law stopped by the Features Editor’s desk, picked that day’s edition and said he was doing the weight test, eg, never mind the quality, feel the width.

When the Sunday edition went tabloid, Law was involved in that and apparently insisted it be full of social pics on the old country newspaper theory that you make a lot of money from putting people’s pics in the paper because they rush in the next day and order copies.

That might work in Gulgargambone but not in slightly more sophisticated Canberra. Besides, photo sales are a very small contributor to the revenue of the CT.

Nevertheless, Law insisted that the yoof liftout, Buz, have a certain number of pics in it every week – although why drunk and drug-addled yoofs at Canberra discos would be a earner is beyond me. Law was once seen standing at the desk of Michael Stevens, the Sunday editor (now editor of the CT), counting the social pics in the new tabloid Sunday edition and telling him there needed to be more.

ends

Tales of Law’s cost slashing

Stephen,

Stories of Law-inspired cost cutting abound throughout Rural Press. Here are a couple that spring to mind.

* Stationery restrictions at a paper I worked at to save costs, two pens and one notepad a month for each journalist.

* Computer pooling or sharing – Law’s theory was that journalists don’t really spend all that much time on computers, they should be talking on the phone and out gathering information etc. As you can imagine, with a deadline approaching, there were several journalists standing around waiting for a computer to become free.

* One cost cutting measure I know Mr Law does not subscribe to is expecting the company’s senior executives to buy their own lunch. When head office was located at Kensington – it recently moved to The Land offices at Richmond – all senior staff had their lunch bought for them from an overpriced cafe in the Moore Park Supacentre.

I can’t for certain say this was a Law policy, but surely any genuine razor man would start the cost cutting at the top, wouldn’t they?

I’ll put some more together when I get a chance

Name Withheld

Judge gives Law a spray

Hey Stephen,

Funnily enough, the ASIC -v- Rural Press case is on a list of precedents for a TP case I am doing. Here is the scaleplus link. If it doesn’t work go to scaleplus.law.gov.au and do a case name search in the Cth Cases datebase for Rural Press – it is about the 4th one down.

Interesting to note that Law was given a pecuniary penalty of $40,000.00, and Judge Mansfield found “In each of their cases, a severe penalty is called for. Mr Law and Mr McAuliffe were each in very senior positions. They were both involved directly in the conduct which amounted to the contraventions. They were in a position to control or prevent the contraventions. Rather than discourage the contraventions, they gave their informal approval to the conduct. As Mr Law was in a more senior position than Mr McAuliffe, I consider that a greater penalty should be imposed upon him. Each displayed scant regard for compliance with the Act, and Mr Law in fact persevered with his conduct after his managing director on about 7 April 1998 had drawn to his attention the possible implications of the Act. ” (@ para 67)

Looks like just the sort of bloke you would want running a major listed company.

Cheers, Name Withheld

A bias towards the Libs perhaps

Stephen,

Just a few more snippets on Ian Law, I have got my feelers out within the company so I can’t claim credit for all the pieces and they should be handled as anonymous contributions.

* The press pack that the company distributed to all its small regional papers, tri, bi, and weeklies for the ’96 election contained some interesting pictures, approved by Law.

John Howard was pictured with the bright, smiling face that you could expect to see from a politician. Paul Keating’s mugshot on the other hand looked like he had taken time off from his job as a mortician to run for government.

* A brief not from Law accompanied this press pack stating that in the lead up to the election, the editor should weigh up the merits of each candidate – and then choose one to support and give them favourable coverage. While most editors probably ignored this, it is a scary suggestion to come from the boss of a media organisation with a massive reach in parts of regional Australia.