3AW’s Neil Mitchell lashes The Age for dumping daily editorials

3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell has blasted The Age for scrapping its daily editorials.

3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell.

3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell has ridiculed The Age’s decision to dump its daily editorials, saying the move was akin to ripping out the “heart of the paper”.

From Monday, The Age, edited by Patrick Elligett, will reduce the frequency of its editorials; instead of running in every edition, they will now “run regularly on Saturdays and appear (on) other days as required”, according to a note in last week’s newspaper.

The editorials, which outline the newspaper’s considered view on important issues, will be replaced by “more reader commentary, new columns and quizzes”.

Mitchell told his listeners on Thursday that the move by Nine Entertainment – which owns both the Melbourne masthead and 3AW – would have caused a “number of former Age editors to turn over in their grave”.

“That is a massive step for a paper like The Age, massive,” he said.

“Editorials are not greatly read apart from politicians and business leaders and some journalists, but they are sort of the heart of the paper.

“The Herald Sun still runs them and I must say at times The Age editorials the past few years have got a bit woke and heavy handed and terribly important to people standing around the water cooler, rather than the real world.”

Editor of The Age Patrick Elligett. Picture: Twitter

Mitchell edited The Herald from 1985 to 1987 and also worked at The Age for 15 years before joining 3AW in 1987.

He told his listeners: “We won’t be dumping editorials here, so you don’t need to read The Age – you can come here and hear the editorial,” he said.

“The Age has been a campaigning newspaper, going over its whole history going back to David Syme (owner from the 1860s to the 1960s).

“I really wonder what’s behind that.”

Former editor-in-chief of The Age and The Sunday Age, Andrew Jaspan, who led the papers from 2004 to 2008, told ABC Melbourne’s radio host Rafael Epstein last week that he wasn’t opposed to the change.

“The daily editorial sometimes doesn’t have anything relevant or pertinent to say on the day and my view (is) rather than publish a daily editorial … you publish it when you have got something to say,” Jaspan said.

“If you don’t have something to say on that day, well, so be it.”

Epstein said some readers see the editorial as the “central function performed by the newspaper every day”.

“Isn’t that the paper abandoning its core readership?”

Jaspan said: “When I was running The Age I made the decision about what went into those editorials in Melbourne and every day we would ask ourselves what do we think Melbourne or Victoria thinks about these issues, what should be the position of the paper.

“Sadly now The Age has largely merged with The Sydney Morning Herald and they share editorials across the two, and what happens when you share editorials across the two is there isn’t really a Melbourne voice,” he said.

The Age later told Epstein it only occasionally shares editorials with the Sydney paper.