Jonathan Green, former Crikey editor, now editor of The Drum, writes: I seem to have been reading Crikey forever. Thanks largely to people passing it on. Don’t think I ever paid for it … no. Never did. So much for that business model! Always read it though. Picking through the index for something that caught the eye. Sometimes ripping off an idea for a column. Sometimes getting the background rub on the place that paid me. Sometimes just amazed. Sometimes laughing out loud. Sometimes plainly disbelieving. It was scampier back then, but less reliable. Somehow less readable. Less insightful too; more a creature of personal prejudice and whim. Somewhere between scuttlebutt and a scandal sheet.

Which is OK, but these days Crikey probably gives some of the best commentary and reporting on national affairs going. Which is better. And it can still be funny. Irreverent. Not take itself too seriously. There’s a lesson there for all of us in the communications game: ponderous self importance does not make you more serious of meaningful. It just makes you ponderous and self important. Hullo Glenn Milne.

I edited Crikey for nigh on three years and it was fun, fast, difficult, draining. Good though … as close to pure, undiluted, decent journalism as I’ve done in 30 years at it. It’s 10 now and deserves to be. Hope we can say the same about the 20th.

Wendy Harmer writes: First Dog Doggerel. *

Dear First Dog upon the moon,
You greet me every afternoon.

In my in-box, always effulgent,
(Thesaurus also suggests,‘refulgent’).

One means “to shine”, the other, “reflect”,
But you have both the same effect:

Diamond brilliance, adamantine,
Dazzling with your wit and line.

I love your special sense of humour.
Some don’t get it, but I call it lunar.

By that I mean, it’s round and full,
Escaping earth’s gravitational pull.

Keep on laughing. Mind the impact craters,
Made by the doubters, critics and haters.

Keep on leaping, lunar dog,
You pierce our human myopic fog.

We appreciate the scratch and sniff,
We’re right behind you — Go the Biff!

We laugh to see you scrape your bum,
On the fundamental firmamum.**

I’m not good much good at poetry or rhymin’
But, unlike Tony, once had a hymen.

If I still had my precious gift now,
I’d give it to you, tied up in a bow.***

* with apologies to no one in particular, but Crikey readers, in general.
** Googled this. Not an actual word, but should be.
*** F%$% the rhyming dictionary!!

Michael Gawenda, director  at the  Centre for Advanced Journalism at the University of Melbourne, writes: Disclosure first: I have been an infrequent contributor to Crikey in recent times. What’s more, my blog, Rocky and Gawenda was given a home at Crikey by the previous editor, Jonathan Green. That was a brave decision by Jonathan given that Rocky and Gawenda has been viewed by some –who have nevertheless read and followed it assiduously– as a self-indulgent wallow in personal memories by an old journalist past his prime. What’s more,  Jonathan and Eric Beecher, Crikey’s publisher, I consider my friends.  Perhaps that’s why, some of you may reckon, my modest contributions to the newsletter as well as Rocky and Gawenda have been published.  I certainly could not have imagined contributing to Crikey in its infancy! Nor I imagine, would Stephen Mayne have ever considered me a  possible Crikey contributor. Even had I not been editor of The Age at the time.

At the time, I considered myself to be a journalist bound by certain ethical rules, one of which was that I would not — publicly — retail unsubstantiated rumors and gossip. Boring, I know. And slightly hypocritical for like all journalists, I  devoured unsubstantiated rumors and gossip.  That all said, I think it an enormous achievement that Crikey is celebrating its 10th birthday. It is certainly cause for celebration for all of us concerned about the future of journalism. That Crikey has survived and thrived, that it has built a loyal following, which I am told is still growing, has forced me to consider the possibility that God does indeed exist and that he/she, is particularly interested in ensuring that journalism has a future.  Enough of the praise and talk of God and miracles. The fact is that while I was sometimes the subject of Crikey rumours during Mayne’s time — utterly improbably rumors, some of them quite unpleasant — I found it lively, zany, mad, unpredictable and revealing. In other words compulsive readings, like all good gossip. I would open the Crikey email with a little trepidation — just a little, for the fact is that I didn’t care that much what Crikey said about me or The Age — but with a sense of anticipation that I would be amused, informed, puzzled and even stunned by what I was about to read.

Beecher changed Crikey. He set new journalistic standards. He was a substantial journalist and editor, who had been highly successful in the mainstream of journalism and he set about making Crikey a more mainstream outfit. The challenge, I always thought, was to set these standards, make Crikey more believable and trustworthy while at the same time, retaining its cheekiness and sense of fun, its feeling of being an “outsider”, in no way part of the media oligopolies. That challenge remains. I think it has only been partially met. No doubt Crikey is often informative, sometimes breaks substantial stories and has several contributors — Bernard Keane among them — who are always worth reading.

But it is now hardly ever really surprising in an outrageous sort of way. Some days, it seems too serious, too “responsible”, too dull in other words. Some days, it feels unedited, in the sense that stories are too long and too unstructured. This is a resource issue I think. Some of the contributors seems to me to get a run because they are cheap — or free. Crikey is not unpredictable enough in my view. Its tone sometimes seems to me to be 1960s -1970s New Left. One or two of its contributors have become Crikey’s dominant voices and tone setters. That, too, may be a resource issue, but it means that Crikey is sometimes a “should read but maybe I will later” rather than a “must read right now”.   And Crikey, though part of  “new media”, is in a way, really old-fashioned media. It relies heavily on words and there are few pictures or graphics or pull-out quotes. Nor does it feel like much thought is given to design. It’s an old-fashioned newsletter. And the more substantial it becomes, the more all this is a problem.

Crikey is not easy to navigate.  And its relationship to the Crikey website is muddled. This is about the difficulty in a business model of distinguishing what is paid and what is free, I think.  Still, for all that, Crikey’s 10th birthday — that it has reached that age and is still going and growing — speaks of faith and hope an unwillingness to be doom-filled about the future of journalism. I consider Eric Beecher and his team miracle workers and perhaps they should consider going through the process of being canonised. I would be happy to swear  by any God to the Crikey miracle but I am not sure non-Catholics — OK a Jew —  would be considered a kosher witness.

Terry Cutler writes: What a difference 10 years makes!  Melbourne is now the online media capital of Australia, and Crikey has been an important catalyst in this revolution. But promise me you won’t go all grown-up too quickly. Happy birthday, and how glad I am I got in on the ground floor as a lifetime subscriber!  It gives me access to news others gloss over, and stimulating commentary.  So thank you for justifying my faith in new media.