The Chaser print edition closes
After six years and 90 issues The Chaser team will release their final edition at the weekend - and one proposed headline sums up their mood: "F--- you all, nation of morons fails to appreciate faultless satirical publication."
Circulation in peak months was about 12,000, but the group was barely able to cover production costs. Issues used to appear fortnightly but have recently been more sporadic.
Successful forays into television - such as CNNNN, Election Chaser and The Chaser Decides - helped to prop up the print arm.
The figures were all the more depressing said one founder, Julian Morrow, because The Chaser was the only commercial satirical newspaper in Australia.
"We failed despite a complete lack of competition," he said. Instead lovers of satire are gravitating towards the web, where the content is free and can be updated regularly.
Mayne sells Crikey
Online publisher and shareholder activist Stephen Mayne has sold his five-year-old Crikey site for $1 million to former Sydney Morning Herald editor Eric Beecher.
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Crikey, a controversial web site whose irreverent style of covering media and business news and personalities has often outraged its subjects, was launched by Mr Mayne and his partner Paula Piccinini.
In a newsletter to subscribers, Mr Mayne explains: "The decision to hand over management control to some media professionals is based on the desire to take Crikey to the next level. There is only so much you can do from the spare rooms of a modest suburban house in Melbourne's eastern suburbs...
It is time to get a life again rather than literally working every day of the week on Crikey, including 6-8 hours every Sunday."
Well, I thought it was interesting.
Another interesting juxtaposition: in today's Herald Mamdouh Habib is described as a former detainee, while the Telegraph call him a terror suspect, the Tory pricks.