Kudos to Fairfax for publishing this comment piece by Alan Kohler about Fairfax being trumped by PBL in their purchase of carsales.com.au. Kohler opens the column with: “It takes a kind of desperate courage to embrace your enemy and perhaps John Fairfax has never been quite desperate enough to entirely embrace the internet.” Further on he says Fairfax suffers from “incumbent paralysis”. I’d agree. Fairfax has stumbled along the road to online and the effects of this will be felt not only in the company but all along their supply chain. Whereas for decades they have been the classified leader, now they have to react.