Fairfax and Gina Hancock

Like father like son.

Gina Hancock has proudly filled the place of the son Lang Hancock never had.

With an ongoing argument with the Government level of society the Hancocks know one way to fight back.

Get some media on your side!

And the best way to do that is to OWN some of that media. Lang opened the Sunday Independent in Perth. Gina is wheeling and dealing to take over the Fairfax Newspaper Empire desert island.

All the current talk around the Gina takeover is on whether she will be able to bully her way into seats on the board and whether she will allow the traditional Fairfax editorial independence. All that talk will disappear once she fails to gain those seats and, in a fit of pique, buys the whole damn lot! Full ownership will give her full control!

Stuff editorial independence.

“What will Gina do with that control?” is the question exercising many minds.

Own a Newspaper! In Lang’s case, he did as he had done with the West’s Iron Ore industry. He built it from scratch. On Sunday Apr 27th, 1969 he launched, in partnership with his mining buddy, Peter Wright, the Independent. A  Sunday only publication and its founding editor was Maxwell Newton.

The front page was highlighted by stories by Peter Ellery, on suburban land prices, not minerals, and Peter Kelly on B.A. Santamaria of National Civic Council fame. There is also the photo story of a part of the near-city Swan River being pegged for mining. Lloyd Marshall was the reporter on this one.

Not a bad line up for the first page of a new media platform for an aggrieved anti-Governmental control mining magnate.

On page two was this wonderfully partisan cartoon by Cedric Baxter who had won a Walkley Award the year before for his work at the “West”.

In his editorial on page 3 of the first issue of The Independent on Apr 27, 1969.

Noted Socialist, Mr. John Gorton was the Prime Minister at the time.

Circulation was claimed to be 70,000 copies at its peak, however it never seriously challenged that of its rival, the well established Sunday Times. In 1973 it ran as a daily for four weeks, as The Independent Sun, in direct competition with The West Australian. The Sunday Times’ owners, News Corporation acquired it in 1984 and it was wound up in May 1986.

Like Father like – – –

Lang wrote a book in 1979, “Wake Up Australia”. Gina wrote a poem in 2012!

There  is one difference between the generations. Lang created. Gina buys! She took over a mining enterprise from her father and she will take over a media enterprise.

So what can we expect from Gina, Wonder Media Woman?

Inspired by “Lord” Monkton, moving into the media for a personal agenda seems a good idea. Much the same as moving into nautical navigation because you like to look at the stars.

Should the past be any example, employees of Fairfax would be advised to look for newer, more stable employment. With no media experience, the Fairfax organisation, under Gina, will have the momentum to run for another decade but by then the signs of decomposition will be apparent to all. Not only has Gina no media savvy, she is going into a dying print industry. One wonders how many of her billions she is willing to waste in propping up a flogged dead donkey.

She will push her anti-tax, anti-socialist, ME ME ME agenda to an increasingly small audience.

The effect of  a Gina Media-Monster.

Venomous and of a size to consume small politicians – – – oops. Sorry. That is a Gila Monster! Ignore this paragraph.

The damage a Gina Media-Monster could do to the present Government is probably not huge. With the current Main Stream Media Group-think being so anti-government, any additional Gina-damage will be small.

As shown by her father’s railings, she could easily turn on a Parliament run by any political party. The Hancock view seems to be that ANY Government is Socialist!

Still. It will be all over by 2025. By then the heat will be too great and Gina will have to find a way out of the kitchen. The pity is that it will be too late to avoid the catastrophic Climate Change she is determined to ignore. And too late for the Fairfax brand.

I do hope the staff of Fairfax will have had the sense to flee to higher ground by then!

Images of the Independent were taken from Microfilms held by
the Battye Library of Western Australia