It’s the way you tell ’em: Even ‘The Australian’ came in for criticism when the departure from News Limited of Carsguide managing editor Ged Bulmer was described as a “sacking”. Crikey did it as well, but advertising industry newsletter B&T reported acting News communications director Stephen Browning claim that he wasn’t sacked – just made redundant.

We’re sure he’ll feel better about that.

The revolving door keeps turning since former Foxtel boss Kim Williams settled in last December. Among those heading for the exit have been PANPA president Joe Talcott, magazines chief Sandra Hook, Greg Baxter, who handled the tricky corporate affairs role, and chief operating officer Peter Macourt.

Among those back with a regular role at Holt Street, of course, is new Twitter fan Rupert Murdoch, who reserved the chairman’s role for himself in the last shake-up.



Timing is everything, of course: Bruce Wolpe – who left a role as Fairfax Media communications director to re-engage in American politics – has returned to Australia as a senior advisor to the prime minister.

When he left, there was an atmosphere of hope in a US era which included the Obama election, Wolpe working as senior staffer to California congressman Henry Waxman.

And while a new presidential election looms, what prospects for him in Canberra? Certainly creating a happy liaison between Julia Gillard’s government and the business community would appear to be a (challenging) opportunity. But for how long?

In Germany because of a pressing invitation to the PrintCity pre-DRUPA briefing (see page 16), I joked that we had been complaining the week before that the pool temperature had dropped to 26°C. It was -20° when I arrived at the Schloss Hohenkammer venue on the Sunday evening, the same day as my departure from Brisbane.

Shouldn’t complain. Since my return, vagaries of the weather have seen Wagga Wagga (pronounced as it is spelled on the BBC, I’m told) evacuated, Sydney flooded, and our office here separated from the rest of the world (twice) by seven-metre rises in the creek level. Et cetera.

The 15th century Hohenkammer castle traces its history to 1042, but was substantially renovated five years ago for use as a financial institution’s training centre. PrintCity director David Stamp says easy access was a big factor in the choice of venue, in which Lappland was also a possibility!

Climate apart, the mix of history and modern architecture was an appropriate setting for PrintCity’s “lean, green” message. It’s also the centrepiece of an organic farm espousing biological and sustainable production.

More importantly, the visit gave me an opportunity to see state-of-the-art press technology in Ulm and chat with Stroma digital printing pioneer in London. Oh, and catch a bite of supper with my two daughters in a cafe in Heathrow’s Terminal 3!

My thanks to David Stamp and his PrintCity team, Robert Weidemann of manroland web systems, and Josef Simmerl, Natalie StJohn Cox and Barry Hack of Océ for making it all possible.



A new book appears to be looming from journalist-turned-lecturer Louise North, who is seeking with a Monash research project to find out whether women find newsrooms ‘bleak’. Apparently she did, “surviving 19 years” of blokey culture.

In the ANHG newsletter, she doesn’t say which of the “three options” she chose (use her feminine wiles, act like one of the boys, or accept she would always be an outsider)… or why she stuck a job she apparently hated so much, so long.

The survey replicates one by the MEAA in 1996, and expands on one she did for her 2009 book, ‘The Gendered Newsroom’.



A neat touch from the ‘Canberra Times’ is an animation showing editorial artist David Pope at work. To show stages in the development of his daily cartoons, he drew directly into a tablet PC set to take a screen shot every few seconds.

The result is an animation of the process as the cartoon develops from early sketch into the finished pieces published in the national capital newspaper and its website.

You can see the video – and the finished political cartoon – here.