WHACKED WEDNESDAY: The Age's Most Despised

Paul Ramadge, pictured above in skin-tight lycra, is the most hated man at The Age.

The so-called Senior Deputy Editor Ramadge does the dirty work for Editor Andrew Jaspan who told one colleague behind the Latte Curtain at the Spencer Street Soviet "He may not be much of an editor but at least he does what I fuc*ing say."

Ramadge is a former Newcastle Herald journalist and one-time editor of the Dubbo Daily Liberal who had reached his level of competence there, many believe.

Since his exciting days in fast-paced, cosmopolitan "the City that never sleeps" Dubbo, Ramadge has hung around like a bad smell at The Age, a malovent pong once constrained by former editor Michael Gawenda but who has been unleashed to waft in the wild since the arrival of Jaspan from England.

Earlier in the year Ramadge took to using the pages of the paper as his personal blog, retelling unexciting travel highlights in a pathetically uninteresting self-indulgent account of his trendy lefty bike riding around Tuscany. Perhaps he was never allowed to finish the boring yarn at inner urban dinner parties so decided to take it out on Age readers.

He is regarded by Age insider as a menacing presence who fails to understand the creative process, knows little or nothing about Melbourne and - according to one angry observer - "who is so firmly entrenched in Jaspan's bum that one can not quite discern where Jaspan's anus commences and the soles of Ramadge's shoes ends." Such colourful invective flows from our Stalinist friends at North Korea and Spencer Street!


RAMADGE THE RASPUTIN IN JASPAN'S COURT
Some at The Age are open about telling outsiders that Ramadge is "sleazy", "untrustworthy", and the "Rasputin in Tsar Jaspan's court, viciously scheming and eyeing off all the young women."

Gawenda is seen by Fairfax insiders as having restricted the Ramadge to lightweight sundry oddjobs back in those days but since the disastrous appointment of Jaspan Ramadge has seized power with the tight grip of a pair of lycra riding shorts.

Part of his problem, some idly speculate is his ambition to be a ladies' man around an office where the politically correct thought police operate with greater militancy than in Tehran. The OC believe that he has had little luck in the adultery department with some wits speculating he'd have more luck in the Islamic Republic.

Those who know Melbourne well, know that Ramadge is a big talker and boaster but struggles to deliver anything of substance.

EXPENSIVE LONDON JUNKET
Last year Ramadge was sent on a mission by Jaspan to inspect the goings-on at the Guardian newspaper in London, a notoriously left-wing and error-filled publication. Their transition to tabloid had attracted Jaspan's interest as a possible way out of The Age's much celebrated readership death spiral.

Ramadge dutifully obeyed Master and went over to the Old Country, came back full of enthusiasm for a transition to tabloid, persuaded Jaspan but appears to have been done over by the board who were concerned about what it would do to their classifieds and other advertising revenue.

So they did what The Age's decision makers have done for decades, put off the tough decisions. They are damned if they do make the change (potential massive slump in ad revenue with many making the leap to the Herald Sun's highly professional classifieds service) and damned if they don't (continuing to struggle with commuter market and ongoing collapse in non Saturday fully paid circulation).

Ramadge's visit was a complete waste of money for shareholders, costing the company many tens of thousands of dollars which were largely wasted.

THE AGE IS FINISHED
The failure of the board to confront its future or lack of one is a recipe for frustration and indolence from Andrew Jaspan down. No one has a way out for a newspaper whose whole decades-long business strategy is in collapse. Their future is bleak. Their present is confined to boring, vendetta driven gossip columns and snide leftiste propaganda. They are ashamed of their White Australia Policy promoting past. The Spencer Street Soviet is in freefall and crisis.

And Paul Ramadge, known for his ham-fisted thuggery and bullying of subordinates, is playing an important role in the downfall of The Age which is headed the way of the Melbourne Argus newspaper. The Age will be soon gone and forgotten.

Ramadge though will be long remembered in Australian journalism as the despised hatchet man of Editor Andrew Jaspan's lamentable reign of error which has all but destroyed Melbourne's second newspaper.

Game on.