MARK SCOTT: We are starting consultations today which will see around 300 jobs go from the ABC, we think overall by the time we've finished this program it could be over 400 jobs going so it's a very significant job cut and those job cuts are going to have a impact right across the organisation.' — ABC News 24, 24th November, 2014

Hello I'm Paul Barry, welcome to Media Watch.

And no big surprises from the ABC's Managing Director Mark Scott today ... but also no escape from the pain.

Scott claims that ALL the $250 million Canberra Cut as he called it WILL be found from back-office savings

But programming will also be cut by $20 million a year to fund the ABC's investment in digital and mobile.

MARK SCOTT: We've got to make some tough choices, we've got to prioritise. What I refuse to do is what some of our competitors in the media space would want us to do, and that is to get out of online and mobile. — Sky News, 24th November, 2014

To fund that $20 million a year:

TV production in South Australia and WA will be shut down

100 jobs will also go in TV and radio news ... although some new ones will be created.

Lateline will be made more cheaply and go out first on News 24.

Up to 25 jobs will be cut in local radio.

And the state-based edition of 7.30 on Friday nights will be axed.

And already that last decision has been condemned

CHRIS WARREN: I think it's an error, ah, because it's such a critical local voice, particularly in one newspaper towns. That it will really make a material difference I think to people's understanding and knowledge of about what's going on in their state. — ABC News 24, 24th November, 2014

To help plug that gap, the ABC will carry more regional news in its 7pm bulletins and online and , says Scott ...

MARK SCOTT: We're also creating an ABC regional division which allows clear focus on our delivery of news, current affairs and local information in regional and rural communities. — ABC News 24, 24th November, 2014

Mark Scott told ABC staff three times he was sorry to make such cuts but there was no escaping the need to do it now and in the future

The entire media industry he said, was facing rapid change and disruption and would continue to do so.

And he's not wrong.

Indeed, if you think times are tough in public broadcasting, get a load of this from the United States .

Newspaper Asks Journalists to Deliver the Paper After They're Done Writing It — Slate, 16th November, 2014

I should say that thanks to the cuts at the ABC I will be filming myself on the program next year.

But seriously ... are things really so bad in print?

Certainly that story from California last week suggests that being a newspaper reporter is no longer a glamorous gig.

And writing skills may not be all you need. Riding a bike could also come in handy. As the Los Angeles Times told readers:

The Orange County Register is now asking its reporters and other staff members to deliver papers. Amid continued problems with newspaper deliveries, the paper is offering employees up to $150 in Visa gift cards to deliver hundreds of newspapers on Sundays and Thanksgiving ... — Los Angeles Times, 14th November, 2014

Mind you, they're lucky they still have a paper to deliver, because as Australian business analysts IBISWorld tell us in their latest report, Newspaper Publishing in Australia is in rapid decline and ...

Print newspapers are quickly becoming a thing of the past. — IBISWorld Industry Report, Newspaper Publishing in Australia, July, 2014

Sounds harsh? Well ...

Latest figures for The Age in Melbourne show sales of the paper in the September quarter were 20% down on the previous year.

And going back ten years you can see that sales have almost halved.

Even worse, The Age now sells only 108,000 copies a weekday in a city which has grown to more than 4 million people.

So it's no surprise that two past editors of the paper told Media Watch:

The glory days are over, there's no doubt ... — Bruce Guthrie, Editor, The Age (1995-1997), and Herald Sun (2007-2008), Statement to Media Watch, 17th November, 2014

Looking back on it now it's almost as if it was an ancient time, it's a time that's vanished. — Michael Gawenda, Editor (1997-2004), The Age, Statement to Media Watch, 14th November, 2014

If you look at all four daily papers in Melbourne and Sydney the picture is also bleak.

In the last decade, combined weekday sales of The Age, Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph and Sydney Morning Herald have fallen by almost 40%.

So how much longer can those printed papers survive?

And how much have they already changed?

For our last program of the year we've taken a week of those four printed papers from a decade ago ago and the same week this year to see how they compare.

So ... This is the Sydney Morning Herald from a Saturday in June 2004, minus Drive, Domain and My Career.

And this is the same paper ten years later.

And the first thing you notice is the weight ...

Today's weekend Herald is 102 pages thinner.

But it's smaller too. In its new tabloid form it's exactly half the size.

Which means you're now getting roughly a third of the newspaper you got ten years ago-and it's the same with The Age.

Inside the paper, you're doing a little bit better, but you're only getting two-thirds of the stories that used to be on offer.

And that's because the rivers of gold that paid for news at Fairfax have run dry.

I edited The Age in the mid-90s and the Herald Sun ten years later, and they were boom times really. Editors turned ads away because they thought, 'that ad might make my page three look ridiculous'. Now they're desperate to fill space. — Bruce Guthrie, Editor, The Age (1995-1997), and Herald Sun (2007-2008), Statement to Media Watch, 17th November, 2014

Back in 2004 the Sydney Morning Herald's Domain section on Saturday-packed full of real estate ads-was 80 pages long.

Now it's a little over half the size.

In 2004 its Drive section-full of ads for cars-was 52 pages long.

Now it's less than a third of the size.

And in 2004, the job ads in My Career bulked up the liftout to 38 pages.

Ten years later there is no liftout.

Inside the paper, classified ads are also down, from 16 broadsheet pages to 15 of tabloid size.

Which is a fall of more than half.

And the story at The Age is much the same.

The result? Revenue has collapsed ... staff have been sacked ... and profits have vanished.

The profits on The Age were just above $100 million a year ... Now they are making next to nothing. — Andrew Jaspan, Editor, The Age (2004-2008), Statement to Media Watch, 19th November, 2014

We had about 360 editorial staff ... I'd be surprised if it's more than 250 now. — Michael Gawenda, Editor (1997-2004), The Age, Statement to Media Watch, 14th November, 2014

More than 100 jobs would have gone and that simply has to have an impact on the quality of the journalism. — Bruce Guthrie, Editor, The Age (1995-1997), and Herald Sun (2007-2008), Statement to Media Watch, 17th November, 2014

In fact it's more than 200 jobs - or over half of the staff - that have gone at each of the Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

And those who are left have to write for the websites too. Which is where the readers have gone.

But while 5 million people now visit those websites each month Fairfax makes little money from them.

Because most people don't pay.

And the ads on the sites are dirt cheap.

Which is why, according to ex Herald editor, Eric Beecher, it all looks so dire.

Clearly you have chosen the worst decade in the history of the modern newspaper to study ... the worst decade in the last 100 years, maybe 150 years. As a currency newspapers ... in the past decade have almost literally collapsed ... — Eric Beecher, Editor, Sydney Morning Herald, (1984-1987), Editor in Chief, Herald and Weekly Times (1987-1990), Statement to Media Watch, 20th November, 2014

Over at News Corp Australia-which owns Sydney and Melbourne's tabloid papers, the story's a bit better but still not good.

Monday to Friday sales of The Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun are down by about a third since 2004.

And that has hurt because they rely more heavily on sales for revenue.

But Herald and Weekly Times managing director Peter Blunden is upbeat.

We're pretty proud and pleased with our print numbers and so long as we're growing our digital numbers as well, we're quite optimistic. ... I think our weekend papers are as strong as they've ever been. — Peter Blunden, Editor-in-chief, Herald and Weekly Times (2001-2012), Statement to Media Watch, 19th November, 2014

But the News Corp tabloids are also much lighter than ten years ago.

In June 2004 the Saturday Herald Sun was 224 pages.

This June it was 148, or roughly two-thirds the size.

And if you look at the Telegraph and Herald Sun for a week you'll find the number of stories has fallen by around a third in the last decade-as it has in the Fairfax papers.

The volume of ads is also down, by around 40% for display ads and 50% for classifieds.

The Herald Sun and Telegraph are still making money-around $70 million a year between them, if you include their Sunday papers-but only a fraction of what they were in the glory days.

So will they still be here in another ten years? The bosses at News Corp say yes.

Absolutely we'll still have newspapers in ten years ... I'd be supremely confident that we still have a strong print business in a decade. — Peter Blunden, Editor-in-chief, Herald and Weekly Times (2001-2012), Statement to Media Watch, 19th November, 2014

But there's much less confidence that The Age and Sydney Morning Herald will still be around, even from former editors, like The Age's Bruce Guthrie ...

I would be surprised if the Fairfax dailies last two years. — Bruce Guthrie, Editor, The Age (1995-1997), and Herald Sun (2007-2008), Statement to Media Watch, 17th November, 2014

... And the Sydney Morning Herald's Amanda Wilson.

I'm surprised the weekday Herald is still printed. — Amanda Wilson, Editor, Sydney Morning Herald (2011-2012), Statement to Media Watch, 21st November, 2014

Although Wilson does go on to say:

I expect the weekend Herald to continue for a while yet. It may even become a trendy nostalgic thing to read a Saturday paper. — Amanda Wilson, Editor, Sydney Morning Herald (2011-2012), Statement to Media Watch, 21st November, 2014

So weekend-only or three-day-a-week papers is the forecast for Fairfax.

And for the News Corp tabloids? Well, most agree they're safe for now, thanks to one man.

While Rupert Murdoch is there ... I can't see News Corp being without newspapers ... — Michael Crutcher, Editor, The Courier-Mail (2010-2013), Statement to Media Watch, 19th November, 2014

But Rupert is 83. And recent moves in America suggest he may be losing his grip on the News Corp empire.

What's more, some believe life will get tougher for the Tele and the Herald Sun and indeed the other big city tabloids like the Courier Mail and Adelaide Advertiser.

Ex-Age editor Andrew Jaspan reckons that free, mass-market competition online could really hurt them.

Watch Mail Online, they are going for them, so too BuzzFeed. You will see the rise of online players which will eat into News Corp tabloids ... — Andrew Jaspan, Editor, The Age (2004-2008), Statement to Media Watch, 19th November, 2014

At the other end of the market, in the old broadsheet papers dominated by Fairfax, there's a view that the worst could be over ... and that the fall will bottom out.

But even so, most former editors believe that if newspapers are to survive for long they will have to be different.

The future has to be in unique journalism which covers their city. — Michael Gawenda, Editor (1997-2004), The Age, Statement to Media Watch, 14th November, 2014

... it will be a high-priced niche. — Robert Whitehead, Editor, Sydney Morning Herald (2000-2005), Statement to Media Watch, 21st November, 2014

They will be premium products, more like buying a magazine. — Andrew Jaspan, Editor, The Age (2004-2008), Statement to Media Watch, 19th November, 2014

Those newspapers would be smaller businesses, with smaller staff, aiming at smaller targets.

So if that's the future ... Or if newspapers don't have one, what would we lose?

We'd have nothing to wrap the fish and chips with, nothing to clean the windows, and says ex-Tele editor Campbell Reid a little less to surprise us.

The extraordinary wonder of the printed newspaper is that you pick up the paper and find something you weren't looking for that you had no idea you would be interested in. — Campbell Reid, Editor, The Daily Telegraph (2001-2005), Statement to Media Watch, 20th November, 2014

But whether printed papers survive or not, it's the money that matters.

$1.75 billion in revenue - or about a third - has been sucked out of the industry in the last five years.

And in the last ten years, according to the journalists union the MEAA, the number of journalists working for newspaper companies has fallen by half.

And the effect that is having can only get worse says former Age editor Andrew Jaspan:

The key thing that is lost ... is what used to be known as 'shoe leather journalism. There is no time to go out any more. If you get rid of the specialist reporters and replace them with generalist reporters it's simply not the same. — Andrew Jaspan, Editor, The Age (2004-2008), Statement to Media Watch, 19th November, 2014

But Campbell Reid, now editorial director of News Corp won't have a bar of that. And he says his editors would agree that journalism today-despite less money, fewer staff and higher workloads-is healthier than ever.

To people who say that real journalism has less time to be conducted I say one word: crap. If you're a modern journalist and you need to research a subject you can do in an instant what used to take an investigative journalist or police reporters a day to find out ... I would argue to my last breath that journalism now is better than it was ten years ago. — Campbell Reid, Editor, The Daily Telegraph (2001-2005), Statement to Media Watch, 20th November, 2014

Most of the former editors we talked to do not share his view.

Bruce Guthrie fears we will no longer be able to shine a light into dark places.

Andrew Jaspan and Eric Beecher are worried that investigative and public trust journalism will die out, because there's no longer the money to fund it.

And journalism professor Mark Pearson has a similar concern.

As newspapers decline we will see a parallel rise in spin, government control over the message which we have been seeing for the past couple of decades. We've already reached the point where there are more people in the census working as PR people than journalists. — Professor Mark Pearson, Griffith University, Statement to Media Watch, 19th November, 2014

But for the moment, they're still with us ... and they're still holding the powerful to account ... and what better example could we give you than the Sydney Morning Herald's pursuit of disgraced ALP powerbroker Eddie Obeid, who was last week charged with misconduct in public office to crown a long campaign in the columns of the paper.

It's this sort of thing we'll miss most if the money runs out.

And that's why the decline of newspapers - which funded so much great journalism - matters to us all.

As former Sydney Morning Herald editor Robert Whitehead puts it... a little grandly

For western society, it's more important that we find a new business model to fund journalism than it is for us to put a man on Mars. Democracy cannot survive on social media alone. — Robert Whitehead, Editor, Sydney Morning Herald (2000-2005), Statement to Media Watch, 21st November, 2014

Ha, must tweet that now!

And you can read more about the future of newspapers on our website, where we have a special page and interviews with all those former editors and some we did not have time to include , who are also well worth reading.

We thank them all. We also thank the journalism students at UTS in Sydney and its Centre for Independent Journalism who made this newspaper project possible.

And we thank you too for watching.

And in a nod to the ABC's new digital era, remember you can catch up with us on iview and follow us throughout the summer on Facebook and Twitter.

But sadly that's all from us this on television this year. We'll be back in early 2015. And I'll be in the chair again. Until then, goodbye.

SHAUN MICALLEF: Thanks very much Paul.

Thank heavens he's gone. Now the job of picking up the media on its manifold inadequacies can be left to professional comedians who know how to nitpick and do a funny voiceover. I mean Paul's natural speaking voice is very funny. I don't know why he doesn't use that.

Now all I have to do is talk to Leigh Sales about getting rid of the comedy segment on her show. There's no place for satire in proper TV journalism. Even this bit doesn't feel right.

I'll ring Malcolm. Goodbye.

Yes, Mr Turnbull please.