Frustrated by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd, Australian businessman Dick Smith is threatening to burn 180,000 catalogue-like magazines as they have been refused as a paid insert in their Adelaide newspaper.
 Click to enlarge |
Smith was prepared to pay $180,000 to have the magazine included as a supplement in a News Ltd-owned Adelaide newspaper. When News Ltd Chief Executive Kim Williams refused to run the supplement, Smith thought there was a misunderstanding.
Smith emailed Williams saying: “I believe there could be one serious misunderstanding. My magazine is to run as a paid advertising insert in your newspaper … the same way Coles or Harvey Norman would run one of their brochures … My insert is completely harmless to you and your organisation.”
In his email response, Williams said “it is beneath both of us to engage/indulge further in your frivolous and misleading word games.”
The magazine was titled “Dick Smith’s Magazine of Forbidden Ideas (that you won’t read about in the mainstream media)” and features full page ads promoting Australian Dick Smith foods and articles promoting Australian growth and philanthropy.
It also features some jabs at News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch and points out Australia’s largest media company is US owned.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Smith believed News Ltd refused the supplement because it would offend their largest advertisers.
Following Woolworth’s announcement Dick Smith was up for sale, Smith spoke to Fairfax media and threatened to “rubbish [any non-Australian buyer] the whole time.”
You can download the magazine by clicking here. Otherwise, Fairfax Media has picked up the supplement and will publish it this Thursday in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review and the West Australian Newspaper.
