Joe Aston is back. Again.
After leaving The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window in October 2023, writing a book on how Qantas sold out the nation, and announcing he’s going independent, this week the AFR announced Aston was returning to the outlet.
Aston will be penning a monthly column for the AFR as part of a deal with his former employer, which will see it share in the revenue of Aston’s new business-focused publishing and podcasting venture, Rampart.
Speaking to Crikey, Aston said that while high-profile journalists leaving legacy mastheads for independent ventures had been a trend for some time in the United States and elsewhere, Australia had seen a dearth of sustainable new outlets since… well, Crikey.
“You can’t pretend this isn’t already happening elsewhere. This might be a little bit new here, but it’s absolutely not new in the US. Big-name journalists who have broken off are doing really well on Substack or on other platforms,” Aston said.
“There’s heaps of them, heaps. Crikey was a real outlier when it was established back in the day and then there hasn’t been a lot else since then. I mean there’s been Capital Brief, but you go over to the US, from Politico, you then had The Hill, Punchbowl, Axios, and then you had the new run of Puck, Semafor, The Information.”
Asked whether the trend of big-name journalists moving to self-driven independent publications had wider implications for Australian publishing, Aston said it wasn’t his job to “worry about the business model of The Sydney Morning Herald or The Australian or anyone else. I’m now just worrying about my business model, to be honest, which is a big enough job.”
As to whether it was a sustainable move in Australia’s space-limited market, Aston was philosophical.
“I mean, maybe it’s not, and maybe you can give me a job in six months. The truth is, I don’t want to die wondering. So look, I have a theory, but I’m about to find out whether I’m completely wrong. My theory is that yes, the TAM [total addressable market] is a problem, but two, I’m sort of uniquely placed, because I’m in the business and finance space, and that’s more likely to be considered non-discretionary than more commoditised or more competitive areas of journalism.
“There’s just not a great diversity of really, really high-quality business and finance journalism in Australia. That’s my view, and I’m, I think, one of the voices that produces it, and I’m very confident that I can continue to produce journalism that people have got to read if they’re in the space.”
On his potential new competitors, Aston said they never changed: “I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m competing with any business and finance publication in the market, but it’s a big market, so I think it’s underserved by good journalism. I think the AFR is so dominant, you know we can call it a duopoly but I think that would be generous to the AFR’s competitors.”
Relatively new entrant Capital Brief is vying for the same dollar, and CEO Chris Janz told Crikey in December that their “from scratch” publication had a “significant paying audience” one year in — a subscription costs $39 a month, or $348 annually.
As for the deal with his former employer, Aston made it clear that his monthly column would be original, and that the AFR was getting plenty more than just a monthly column in return for its lending of pre- and post-publication legal support. The AFR is owned by Nine Entertainment and retains leading law firm MinterEllison, as does Private Media, owner of Crikey.
“It will be new stuff — and exclusive stuff. It won’t run on my platform. It’s not just that — that’s not the exchange of value. It’s a revenue share deal. They get a share of Rampart’s revenue … they didn’t just lie down and give me the crown jewels!”
What about numbers when it comes to book sales? “Honestly, I say [it was] beyond my expectations”, says Aston, telling Crikey The Chairman’s Lounge has so far sold more than 37,000 copies.
So did he expect his book’s revelation that claimed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese solicited Qantas upgrades directly from then CEO Alan Joyce (a claim Albanese denies) to dominate headlines the way it did? Aston says no.
“I think anyone who reads the whole book understands it’s a very small part of the whole story. It’s an important part, don’t get me wrong, the book’s called The Chairman’s Lounge … as I point out at the very beginning when I declared almost 20 years ago I was a junior Liberal staffer seeing Qantas do this with politicians from both sides, from all sides.”
“I think the fact that Dutton and the opposition went very quiet, very suddenly after a week … I think they realised that if they kept pushing Albanese on this issue, that Albanese might actually have to do something, maybe ban politicians from the Chairman’s Lounge, maybe ban them from accepting upgrades on their private holidays. And the last thing the opposition wants is for that to happen. They want the gravy train to kick on just as much as Labor does,” he said.
“You just have to roll with how the news cycle goes.”
Aston describes the Qantas VIP program as having the best return on invested capital of any sector of the Qantas group. So why are politicians so easily bought? He wagers that flight upgrades are seen as “something that doesn’t have a monetary value”.
“I wouldn’t want to posit internationally about other politicians, but frankly if we’re talking about soft corruption, I’d be much more worried about the US and the vast fortunes that congressmen make trading off inside information,” he said, before drawing back to domestic affairs.
“I think there’s a sense — I can’t quite understand why — but people think that if you get an upgrade, they view it as something that doesn’t have a monetary value, because they sort of imagine that it was just a seat that was going to be empty anyway. And that’s true in cases where you get an upgrade after the flight’s closed.”
“But if you buy an economy ticket, and then you communicate with the airline in advance of the trip, and that ticket is reissued not as an economy ticket but as a business or first class ticket, that does have a monetary value … people wrongly imagine that these things aren’t worth anything, and so they don’t realise that they are, in effect, getting cash.
“They’re getting something that’s worth money to them and therefore it’s not appropriate.”
Meanwhile, complaining about Qantas has become a national sport for some (journos and celebs who like to complain about Qantas on socials, we’re looking at you) and a national obsession for others (ahem, Crikey readers). But aren’t these issues pretty myopic given the relative wealth of those who choose to board the flying kangaroo? Aston reckons the implications for Qantas’ behaviour are much wider ranging than the concerns of whinging, wealthy flyers.
“Qantas is also Qantas as the Qantas Group, which includes [budget airline] Jetstar and the Frequent Flyer program, and Jetstar customers get just as fucked over as Qantas customers, and they, generally speaking, don’t have as much money.
“I think customer standards matter. I also don’t think a wealthy customer is less entitled to their rights as a consumer than a poor customer.”
“Put this in its context … Qantas is able to get protection from the government consistently, which is contrary to the interests of the Australian consumer, the travelling public. That’s contrary to the interests of the rich customer, and contrary to the interests of the budget customer. In the end, all prices are high because of a lack of competition, and my thesis is … generally speaking, there’s a lack of competition because Qantas manages to make sure there is, because Qantas manages to get its way with governments. I mean, the Qatar decision remains one of the great mysteries. So I think that affects everyone.”
“It doesn’t just affect wealthy customers, but yeah, look, there’s no doubt that for the Qantas part of the Qantas Group, no doubt those issues definitely disproportionately affect business travellers and what I like to sort of think of as the ‘Financial Review audience’, which is why it was such a resonant story for me, writing for them.”
That’s an audience Aston is banking will buy a ticket to his new venture. With a price point of $65 a month, they sure aren’t flying Jetstar.
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