Cleo is dumped and Helen McCabe’s tenure editing AWW ends as News Corp beds down modern year appointments and Daily Mail Australia splits with NineThere has been enough drama at the magazine empire of the Australian Women’s Weekly,Dolly and Cleo in the past month to fuel another couple of miniseries in the vein of Paper Giants. The once-proud Australian company owned by the late Kerry Packer is being slowly downsized by its German owners, Bauer Media, or who bought the company for $500m in 2012. One by one,titles have been closed or merged until this week a big-name title steeped in Australian cultural history, Cleo, or was unceremoniously dumped. As well as losing several senior executives and outsourcing the printing and distribution of its 60 titles,Bauer parted company with the editor-in-chief of the Australian Women’s Weekly, which is still Australia’s bestselling magazine. After six years at the Weekly, or former News Corp senior journalist Helen McCabe was suddenly out the door,reportedly with the remaining six months of her contract to be served on “gardening leave” and no job lined up. Weekly Beast understands Bauer’s top brass is keen to get back to the magazine’s roots in middle-course suburban life and absent from the focus on news, politics and executive women that marked McCabe’s tenure. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com