I was with Fairfax in Brisbane from 2007 until late 2010.   I thought we had a great relationship - and Fairfax seemed really happy too.   During 2010 Fairfax started dropping hints we would be even happier if I moved closer to the Fairfax family home in Sydney.

You don't make a move like that lightly.   I spoke with mates and people who knew Fairfax well.   In the end we agreed that the move made sense for both of us and off I went.   By Christmas 2010 I was in Sydney and on the air with 2UE.  I also wrote a column for the Sydney Morning Herald - and I spent a lot of time at the Fairfax HQ with then SMH editor Peter Fray.

My first impression of walking into the Fairfax building at Pyrmont was of spartan furnishings in the area before the security entrance.   That was where members of the public or people with appointments to see Fairfax operatives waited and chatted with the security officers before being signed in.

But once through those sliding glass doors, a subsidised wonderland awaited.   The entire ground floor was dedicated to the Fairfax internal cafe society.   The place buzzed with chats over cappuccino and the message downstairs was subtle but unmissable - we aim to delight the inner city refined palate.   This was no ordinary staff cafe - because Fairfax staff aren't just extraordinary, they don't seem to believe they are staff or workers at all.

David Marr was usually holding court with adoring acolytes in a large coffee sipping circle.   It didn't matter what time of day, the social hub downstairs was always buzzing.   

I spoke with Peter about it - who's running the show, the bosses or David Marr?  He was pretty frank about the difficulties in managing the SMH journalists who were strong willed as to what they wanted to write about.   Les Patterson's request that Gough cough up a cheque "and I'm talking telephone numbers"  for Les's pet black, disabled, lesbian puppet theatre workshop sprang to mind.

Soon after Peter was made redundant.   He was no longer a fit.  After that Fairfax achieved what I would have thought was the impossible, it lurched even further to the left.

And its quality started turning to shit.

I never thought I'd read about what happened at Fairfax in 2011, let alone that it would be happening to me.

Talkback host Michael Smith told to sign gag order

• MICHAEL BODEY
• THE AUSTRALIAN
• SEPTEMBER 09, 2011 12:00AM

BROADCASTER Michael Smith must make an undertaking not to broadcast material from an interview with Bob Kernohan, former president of the Australian Workers Union, before he returns to air on Sydney's 2UE.

Smith was suspended on Tuesday as Fairfax Media and 2UE management investigated material to be aired in Smith's interview with Mr Kernohan, including allegations of misappropriated union funds.

Yesterday, 2UE management issued Smith with a document requiring his undertaking not to broadcast material from the interview unless the station has evidence to support any claims that will be made.

"If he signs the document, he'll be back on air tomorrow (Friday)," said Fairfax's head of radio, Graham Mott. "If he doesn't we'll have to reconsider our positions."

Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood had no qualms over the suspension. "That was Graham Mott's decision, which I fully support."

The afternoon host remains indignant about the neutering of his questioning of alleged misallocation of union funds by Bruce Wilson, with whom Julia Gillard had a personal relationship before she entered politics.

"This country's pretty screwed up if decent, working people can't turn to a free and open media to have their say," Smith said last night.

- See more at: The Australian

Fairfax's downward spiral over the past few years has been marked by some standout moments.

I wrote a column in October 2013 about Fairfax radio - it's just like the ABC with ads.   If you're up against a wholly government funded competitor, you're unlikely to make much commercial return by delivering the same content with the innovative enhancement of punctuation by ads.

Fairfax's management decisions have been the major reason for its downfall.  Its outsourcing decisions have resulted in the publication of newspapers like this issue of the AFR, sent to the printing presses without anyone noticing, then onto the trucks, on the road and into the newsagents - again without anyone in charge doing anything to fix the debacle.

Fairfax's paying customers had the whole Anzac Day long weekend to consider the AFR's Anzac Day Bumper edition's reflection of the brand attributes Fairfax CEO's brought to the company - as I wrote in a column at the time

Fairfax reflecting Greg Hywood's vision - lean, agile and fukt

The Australian Financial Review was once taken seriously.

This is the Australian Financial Review's front page, as printed, for the Anzac Day bumper long weekend edition.

It's making headlines around the world.   Referring to Tony Abbott's purchase of the Joint Strike Fighter, the front page says, "Arms Build Up, Buys Planes, World is Fukt".  

Here's how BuzzFeed, a news website in the US saw it:

The AFR was lecturing in punctuation too.

But it's all going to plan according to the cost reducing CEO Greg Hywood.  

He's the man who's leading the cost reductions and Fairfax of the Future push. 

He spoke fondly of being the "leader in change" in his speech to shareholders recently.

    ENDS

Last week Fairfax got rid of 120 more journalists.   Its decline seems terminal.  It was so abjectly incompetent in restoring the fortunes of its national network of radio stations that it merged them into a competitor's operation. The Sydney station 2UE is now known for its.....sorry, I can't find an answer to that question.

As we heard the stories of Fairfax's dramas last week, I noticed this message from one of the Fairfax stable of columnists.    A regular at the cafe society sessions downstairs at Pyrmont, Annabel Crabbe.

Popping off to The Drum now to discuss the day with @bairdjulia, Sue Cato and Paul Bongiorno ... Join us 5.30pm

— Annabel Crabb (@annabelcrabb) March 21, 2016

I suppose you can pop off to discuss the day cheerily when you live in a government funded utopia, isolated from ordinary concerns and insulated from the mundane financial insecurities most of us have in our lives.   In 2013 we read of the unspeakable disaster that someone had a copy of the ABC's internal payroll information, a dreadful unprincipled invasion of privacy (as opposed to the actions of heroic Julian Assange or courageous Edward Snowden).

Annabel was then paid $220,000 PA by the ABC to Tweet and write online columns about politics.   Which is code for take the piss out of Tony Abbott.

If viewers, readers and listeners can skip ads they will.   Worse still, why would a potential customer pay for an online subscription when they can get much the same for free elsewhere.   Faced with that reality, why on earth do Fairfax managers fold to the wishes of their staff  - providing the same style, tone and editorial content as the ABC?

And more importantly, what were we thinking allowing the ABC to morph into a multi media behemoth?   As Fairfax shareholders know,  the multi-platform ABC monster happily invades turf where commercial operators are already running businesses and serving customers.

We are all affected by the ABC, it's a very powerful organisation with direct reach into every Australian home.  Weak vacillating governments, like Turnbull's bend over backwards to accommodate its demands.

That's great if you agree with the ABC's worldview, but it's a real danger to our democracy and it's infuriating for Australians who aren't happy with the direction the ABC is taking us.

ENDS

UPDATE 9.10AM

I'd just finished writing and publishing this story when I flipped over to Twitter - the first thing I read?

Thank you to all who supported #fairgofairfax over the weekend. Best thing you can do this week? Subscribe. Please.

— Annabel Crabb (@annabelcrabb) March 20, 2016

It had been reTweeted by  Mr Law who inadvertently sums up the irony of the luxuriously taxpayer funded employee of the ABC, Fairfax's government subsidised competitor and her passionate plea for all who supported #fairgofairfax over the weekend (presumably by retweeting) to subscribe.   Please.  Because to compete with its taxpayer funded competitor, Ms Crabb, Fairfax is now a "cheap as" operation.

P.S. Speaking of Fairfax, subscriptions are cheap as.
SMH: https://t.co/oSb0iLYTsI
The Age: https://t.co/SrxQF7oZwp https://t.co/Np8rDTaMkb

— Benjamin Law (@mrbenjaminlaw) March 22, 2016