What do you think?
Rate this book
Stop Press: the last days of newspapers
There is a story that no one in the media seems willing to tell, one in which journalists have a vested interest: the death of newspapers. Traditionally known to break the biggest headlines, to chase the rumours to their source, and to undertake the most in-depth reporting, newspapers are now grappling with the most formidable challenges since the advent of print.
Reporter Rachel Buchanan provides a unique insider's perspective on the rise and slow decline of the printed newspaper. She exposes the brutal cost-cutting measures of companies intent on squeezing every drop of profit from print before they turn to digital, and examines the consequences for those affected - for it is not only the journalists and editors who are losing their jobs, but also printers, paper-makers, and distributors whose livelihood is disappearing.
Reporter Rachel Buchanan provides a unique insider's perspective on the rise and slow decline of the printed newspaper. She exposes the brutal cost-cutting measures of companies intent on squeezing every drop of profit from print before they turn to digital, and examines the consequences for those affected - for it is not only the journalists and editors who are losing their jobs, but also printers, paper-makers, and distributors whose livelihood is disappearing.
172 pages, Paperback
First published September 25, 2013
18 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Buchanan
19 books10 followersDr Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki, Te Atiawa) is a historian, archivist and speechwriter. Currently, she is an honorary research associate in Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne.
Buchanan has published three books, including "Stop Press," a history-memoir about the collapse of newspaper manufacturing. Her fourth book, "Te Motunui Epa," follows the journey of one of New Zealand's most valuable artworks from swamp to chateau, from auction room to courtroom to lockup and back home again.
Previously, Buchanan was Curator of the Germaine Greer Archive at the University of Melbourne.
Buchanan received her Ph.D. in History from Monash University.
Buchanan has published three books, including "Stop Press," a history-memoir about the collapse of newspaper manufacturing. Her fourth book, "Te Motunui Epa," follows the journey of one of New Zealand's most valuable artworks from swamp to chateau, from auction room to courtroom to lockup and back home again.
Previously, Buchanan was Curator of the Germaine Greer Archive at the University of Melbourne.
Buchanan received her Ph.D. in History from Monash University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 15, 2015
I started this book several times when it first came out but never finished. I'd bought it in print because I felt it deserved to be on my physical bookcase given the subject matter, but I only read on Kindle these days so it kept getting put to one side.
Then I lost my Kindle and found myself bedridden for two days and whoosh, Rachel Buchanan whisked me around with her on a bilateral tour of subhubs in cellars, paper mills in Maori country, defunct printing presses and media executives' offices on both sides of the Tasman.
Buchanan uses her journalistic and historian's skills to tell the sad tale that is the end of newspapers as our parents knew them, and as they were while many of us worked on them before 2012, the year the worst of the redundancies hit.
I liked this more than memoirs written by big players in the media business because Buchanan has no agenda other than to tell the story. She has no need to justify her digital strategy or staff cuts.
Perhaps I also like it because it's to a large extent her story, which is one I can relate to given many parallels it shares with my own.
The passage in which she describes the sub-editor's role through a series of task snapshots is spot on, and pacey, just like a subbing shift.
I worked at Fairfax for 11 years, but in Canberra and Sydney, so never met Buchanan. I did read her columns in Good Weekend, though, and always enjoyed them.
So, I'm glad I lost my Kindle long enough to read this, but I would like to find it now. Has anyone seen it? Navy blue case, probably left on a hotel bedside table or in an airline seat pocket somewhere on the east coast of Australia in the past month.
Then I lost my Kindle and found myself bedridden for two days and whoosh, Rachel Buchanan whisked me around with her on a bilateral tour of subhubs in cellars, paper mills in Maori country, defunct printing presses and media executives' offices on both sides of the Tasman.
Buchanan uses her journalistic and historian's skills to tell the sad tale that is the end of newspapers as our parents knew them, and as they were while many of us worked on them before 2012, the year the worst of the redundancies hit.
I liked this more than memoirs written by big players in the media business because Buchanan has no agenda other than to tell the story. She has no need to justify her digital strategy or staff cuts.
Perhaps I also like it because it's to a large extent her story, which is one I can relate to given many parallels it shares with my own.
The passage in which she describes the sub-editor's role through a series of task snapshots is spot on, and pacey, just like a subbing shift.
I worked at Fairfax for 11 years, but in Canberra and Sydney, so never met Buchanan. I did read her columns in Good Weekend, though, and always enjoyed them.
So, I'm glad I lost my Kindle long enough to read this, but I would like to find it now. Has anyone seen it? Navy blue case, probably left on a hotel bedside table or in an airline seat pocket somewhere on the east coast of Australia in the past month.
March 5, 2017
In this day of newspapers being owned by huge companies who seem more interested in click bait rather than journalism (and they seem to have forgotten how to proof read), this book is a look at the changes brought about by technology and the rise of other media but while being honest about the newspapers themselves, and how they didn't want to move with the times. An interesting read, but with the benefit of hindsight.
June 18, 2018
I can't remember when I first learned how to read, as it wasn't when I got to school, but I suspect the newspapers my father read had something to do with it. I like newspapers; I subscribe to one, enjoy reading them in the morning at breakfast, or on a train, seek them out when I'm travelling, wherever it is. I'm not a tabloid person, though, and like the more serious publications, increasingly hard to find. Reading a newspaper is relaxing.
I toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist on leaving school, although I was only interested in the writing bit, not the phone calls, interviews and all that, so it's just as well I wasn't able to go down that path, although I'd love to write an opinion column.
Rachel Buchanan is someone I know from reading some of her pieces, mostly in the Age, I think. They usually had something interesting to say. This book is about the decline of newspapers, what they once were and what they might be like now. It's also about her mixed relationship with journalism, in various roles, including academic and subeditor. She writes in the early part of the book about trying to escape it, but always coming back for whatever reason or circumstance, something that resonates with me in what I've been engaged in these past decades.
A caveat here is that the book came out in 2013, a few years ago now. Having said that, the issues she examines and the things she observes are fairly comprehensive and if you want to know the context for understanding the newspaper industry at the moment, then you'll be well-informed by this easy to read book.
Buchanan interweaves her own experience in both working for newspapers and teaching students about journalism with information about the people and companies that put out the newspapers, provide things like printing presses and newsprint, or outsourced services. She points out that the decline in newspapers isn't just a problem for journalists, but also for those operating a printing press, or subeditors.
She's worked with both News Limited and Fairfax Media, the two major newspaper owners in Australia and New Zealand, and so tells stories and recounts events from both. The emphasis, though seems to be more on Fairfax Media, although that might just be my bias, as an Age subscriber. Maybe there are also more transparent examples available. At any rate, she escribes the tensions in that organisation very well, from my poutsider's point of view.
If there's one thing to be gleaned from this story, it's the poor treatment of staff members at all levels. The famed journalist Michelle Grattan not being given a farewell; outsourced staff, treated like chattels in sub-standard conditions, working on newspaper content for papers from places they've never been to; or the dubious but not unusual instance of a senior Fairfax manager being given a large departure package (problematic in itself) and then later rehired for a mid to high range 7-figure sum (Buchanan doesn't reveal this latter amount, but it's well-reported).
To me, this also raises questions about the capacity and efficacy of well-known consulting firms who were apparently brought in to give advice to this company, particularly as the issue of loyalty is raised towards the end of the book. This is a general issue of course in financial, educational and other fields, but here it contrasts with the stories of people being determined to get the newspaper out and proud to do so. The lack of care displayed by senior management, including the bluntness of some News Ltd representatives, may not be a result of this outside advice, or course.
An interesting sidelight is the comments regarding the indifference of IT people to any outside complaints about the Age website. "Outside" means those not in the IT area, as well as outsiders like me who have to struggle through someone's strange view of communication, make complaints, but to no end. A complaint is a "request" anyway.
So in the end, I was wondering (again) what might be the case if better decisions were made and people were treated like human beings. I think this is also part of Buchanan's dilemma about her topic.
You can read this in a morning, just about, or maybe a long afternoon. The author is personal and witty, and the pages mostly glide along.
loyalty
I toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist on leaving school, although I was only interested in the writing bit, not the phone calls, interviews and all that, so it's just as well I wasn't able to go down that path, although I'd love to write an opinion column.
Rachel Buchanan is someone I know from reading some of her pieces, mostly in the Age, I think. They usually had something interesting to say. This book is about the decline of newspapers, what they once were and what they might be like now. It's also about her mixed relationship with journalism, in various roles, including academic and subeditor. She writes in the early part of the book about trying to escape it, but always coming back for whatever reason or circumstance, something that resonates with me in what I've been engaged in these past decades.
A caveat here is that the book came out in 2013, a few years ago now. Having said that, the issues she examines and the things she observes are fairly comprehensive and if you want to know the context for understanding the newspaper industry at the moment, then you'll be well-informed by this easy to read book.
Buchanan interweaves her own experience in both working for newspapers and teaching students about journalism with information about the people and companies that put out the newspapers, provide things like printing presses and newsprint, or outsourced services. She points out that the decline in newspapers isn't just a problem for journalists, but also for those operating a printing press, or subeditors.
She's worked with both News Limited and Fairfax Media, the two major newspaper owners in Australia and New Zealand, and so tells stories and recounts events from both. The emphasis, though seems to be more on Fairfax Media, although that might just be my bias, as an Age subscriber. Maybe there are also more transparent examples available. At any rate, she escribes the tensions in that organisation very well, from my poutsider's point of view.
If there's one thing to be gleaned from this story, it's the poor treatment of staff members at all levels. The famed journalist Michelle Grattan not being given a farewell; outsourced staff, treated like chattels in sub-standard conditions, working on newspaper content for papers from places they've never been to; or the dubious but not unusual instance of a senior Fairfax manager being given a large departure package (problematic in itself) and then later rehired for a mid to high range 7-figure sum (Buchanan doesn't reveal this latter amount, but it's well-reported).
To me, this also raises questions about the capacity and efficacy of well-known consulting firms who were apparently brought in to give advice to this company, particularly as the issue of loyalty is raised towards the end of the book. This is a general issue of course in financial, educational and other fields, but here it contrasts with the stories of people being determined to get the newspaper out and proud to do so. The lack of care displayed by senior management, including the bluntness of some News Ltd representatives, may not be a result of this outside advice, or course.
An interesting sidelight is the comments regarding the indifference of IT people to any outside complaints about the Age website. "Outside" means those not in the IT area, as well as outsiders like me who have to struggle through someone's strange view of communication, make complaints, but to no end. A complaint is a "request" anyway.
So in the end, I was wondering (again) what might be the case if better decisions were made and people were treated like human beings. I think this is also part of Buchanan's dilemma about her topic.
You can read this in a morning, just about, or maybe a long afternoon. The author is personal and witty, and the pages mostly glide along.
loyalty
June 30, 2018
DNF. Gave up at page 90.
I work in public relations and therefore come across a lot of commentary on newspapers. Particularly, I find that older media pros seem to be clutching onto newspapers with an unfounded nostalgia. Personally, while I find it sad that people are losing their jobs, I see it as a fact of commercialism that industries come and go as technology advances. So, I read this book with the hope of gaining some insight into the wider impact of the demise of newspapers. Maybe I was missing something? Maybe I could better understand my older counterparts' reasons for determining that newspapers should remain through the digital age?
As Buchanan herself phrased it in the book, she "was writing a book on the wider cultural and economical implications of the end of newspaper manufacturing, the end of newspapers as a vibrant community of workers, and the end of newspapers as an object that could be shared."
While that explanation isn't shared until page 77, it does sum up what I wanted and expected when I picked up the book. I did not learn of any of these things... not in the first 90 pages anyway.
Frankly, the book infuriated me! Here's why...
The author begins with a quick run through of her career in newspapers. The impression I got from this was that she had no real love of journalism, had always wanted out of it to the point of moving on to studying history, but always seemed to be pulled back into newspapers.
This makes it all the more annoying when she spends the entirety of the book sounding like a broken record while trying to convince the reader that the death of newspapers is a massive loss.
The only point the author seems to have for the death of newspapers being a loss is in the loss of jobs - not just journalists, we are reminded repetitively, but newsagents, printing press builders, etc. etc. However, she fails to consider how many jobs have been created in online-only publications and blogging. Sorry if I don't shed a tear for Rupert Murdoch if he was beaten to the punch by Unilad and stay-at-home mum bloggers.
Apart from that one repetitive point, the book just goes on and on without actually saying anything. Pages upon pages are dedicated to describing interviews that she wasn't able to obtain, or that she did obtain but didn't get any information from.
She describes her own time in newspapers as being hell due to overworking, staff shortages and broken communication. Again, sorry if I don't shed a tear because the unbreakable media giants like News Limited are running their businesses badly, or because Buchanan herself seemed to see this demise of newspapers coming since the 90s but rather than try to move with the change, she decided to stay in this dying industry which she seemingly hated.
Buchanan's view of the newspaper industry seems to be summed up in the following quote from the book, "It's true, change can bring opportunity (for a few), but it also brings loss and suffering, the urge to reflect."
The whole book read as a personal rant; just Buchanan being a Debbie Downer rather than wanting to engage in research, discussion and outlook.
Regarding the actual writing; do you love short sentences and staccato rhythm which sounds like a ten year old's literature essay? Then this book is for you!
There is no story, structure or flow to the book. It is filled with repetition - the author comes back to some sort of list of how many jobs have been lost in one part of the industry or another several times and seemingly out of nowhere. I read paragraphs in which I got to the end thinking "What is she trying to say here? What is her point?", only to find the next paragraph has no bearing or relation to the last.
I work in public relations and therefore come across a lot of commentary on newspapers. Particularly, I find that older media pros seem to be clutching onto newspapers with an unfounded nostalgia. Personally, while I find it sad that people are losing their jobs, I see it as a fact of commercialism that industries come and go as technology advances. So, I read this book with the hope of gaining some insight into the wider impact of the demise of newspapers. Maybe I was missing something? Maybe I could better understand my older counterparts' reasons for determining that newspapers should remain through the digital age?
As Buchanan herself phrased it in the book, she "was writing a book on the wider cultural and economical implications of the end of newspaper manufacturing, the end of newspapers as a vibrant community of workers, and the end of newspapers as an object that could be shared."
While that explanation isn't shared until page 77, it does sum up what I wanted and expected when I picked up the book. I did not learn of any of these things... not in the first 90 pages anyway.
Frankly, the book infuriated me! Here's why...
The author begins with a quick run through of her career in newspapers. The impression I got from this was that she had no real love of journalism, had always wanted out of it to the point of moving on to studying history, but always seemed to be pulled back into newspapers.
This makes it all the more annoying when she spends the entirety of the book sounding like a broken record while trying to convince the reader that the death of newspapers is a massive loss.
The only point the author seems to have for the death of newspapers being a loss is in the loss of jobs - not just journalists, we are reminded repetitively, but newsagents, printing press builders, etc. etc. However, she fails to consider how many jobs have been created in online-only publications and blogging. Sorry if I don't shed a tear for Rupert Murdoch if he was beaten to the punch by Unilad and stay-at-home mum bloggers.
Apart from that one repetitive point, the book just goes on and on without actually saying anything. Pages upon pages are dedicated to describing interviews that she wasn't able to obtain, or that she did obtain but didn't get any information from.
She describes her own time in newspapers as being hell due to overworking, staff shortages and broken communication. Again, sorry if I don't shed a tear because the unbreakable media giants like News Limited are running their businesses badly, or because Buchanan herself seemed to see this demise of newspapers coming since the 90s but rather than try to move with the change, she decided to stay in this dying industry which she seemingly hated.
Buchanan's view of the newspaper industry seems to be summed up in the following quote from the book, "It's true, change can bring opportunity (for a few), but it also brings loss and suffering, the urge to reflect."
The whole book read as a personal rant; just Buchanan being a Debbie Downer rather than wanting to engage in research, discussion and outlook.
Regarding the actual writing; do you love short sentences and staccato rhythm which sounds like a ten year old's literature essay? Then this book is for you!
There is no story, structure or flow to the book. It is filled with repetition - the author comes back to some sort of list of how many jobs have been lost in one part of the industry or another several times and seemingly out of nowhere. I read paragraphs in which I got to the end thinking "What is she trying to say here? What is her point?", only to find the next paragraph has no bearing or relation to the last.
February 16, 2017
Yet another book about the demise of the newspapers, this one focuses less on the loss of journalistic and editorial skills (although that's there too) than on the loss of jobs all the way up and down the supply chain, from the paper and ink manufacturers to the newsagencies and deliverators. It's unashamedly subjective: part memoir, part history and part analysis, but it's the foremost of those parts that drives the writing. It's a good book, one that captures aspects of the phenomenon that many of its fellows do not - but not a great one.
September 11, 2025
The first third was fantastic, then it lost a little steam. Still a good chronicle of the rise and fall of newspapers (and maybe journalism) in Australia. Well worth a read, but I’d recommend skimming some of the middle parts.
September 11, 2020
I thought this was a really refreshing take on the death of the press. Really enjoyed it.
January 13, 2014
I roared through Stop Press, written by friend and former colleague Rachel Buchanan.
As someone who has spent most of their working life at The Age, I found her account of the decline of newspapers completely absorbing. Rachel captured what daily life in a newspaper is like - the frantic pace, the frustrations, and the sadness that comes as friends and colleagues continue to negotiate these strange times.
Rachel takes in the big picture & speaks to wide range of people connected to the industry, from the printers, to the subs, the newsagents, to the people manufacturing the paper on which Fairfax prints its mastheads. It's a balanced, but passionate account of someone who understands the value of capturing where the newspaper industry is - right now.
As someone who has spent most of their working life at The Age, I found her account of the decline of newspapers completely absorbing. Rachel captured what daily life in a newspaper is like - the frantic pace, the frustrations, and the sadness that comes as friends and colleagues continue to negotiate these strange times.
Rachel takes in the big picture & speaks to wide range of people connected to the industry, from the printers, to the subs, the newsagents, to the people manufacturing the paper on which Fairfax prints its mastheads. It's a balanced, but passionate account of someone who understands the value of capturing where the newspaper industry is - right now.
September 24, 2014
Fascinating, depressing, poignant. I couldn't put it down.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews