Facing devastating job cuts in photographic and production areas, News Corp editorial staff in Queensland have taken the unusual step of pointing the finger at their bosses in Sydney for bad management, asking why the free online site news.com.au pinches their stories. The cuts will be severe across all the mastheads, with the majority of photographers, subeditors and production staff made redundant. There are no overall numbers yet but as many as 18 of 24 photographers will lose their jobs at the Adelaide Advertiser, and as many as 45 jobs will go overall at the Courier-Mail.

Staff at News Corp’s Bowen Hills headquarters passed a motion of no confidence in senior national News Corp management for its inability to “build an economically viable company”.

“Management’s continuing answer to economic pressures is to reduce staff numbers and jeopardise the quality of the product,” the resolution – unusually bolshie for News Ltd staff – said.

News Corp Australia sacks most of its photographers and subeditors to cut costs Read more

“On a daily basis we see our masthead’s paywall breached by news.com.au and other News Corp mastheads.

“We are yet to see any business innovation that turns the online model into a paying model and believe senior management needs to identify to staff the business plan to increase revenue beyond staff cost cutting.

“Our decision today is made on behalf of our communities. We are prepared to work differently, learn new skills and to be innovative but not at the cost of quality or our own health.

“Our readers rely on the work of our photographers to tell the story in pictures that define the story. They rely on the work of our production staff, artists, subs, designers to ensure the story is delivered accurately and across a variety of mediums.

“We are appalled that across Queensland we have worked to build our online presence and connect to our markets but we are still unable to maintain a paywall or deliver papers in some regional areas before 11am. Senior News Corp management needs to be held accountable for its poor business decisions.”

Heart trouble

Meanwhile at the “heart of the nation” otherwise known as the Australian, it remains unclear what impact the financial restraints will have. Staff on the Tele were less than pleased to hear that their broadsheet brothers and sisters were not going to be cut to the bone in this round of redundancies as they feel the Oz is unfairly immune. But there is some evidence a move to rid the Oz of subeditors and production journalists is close.

An email went around last week telling Oz journos they had to all get on top of the $60m Méthode content management system, introduced by the former chief executive Kim Williams four years ago.

“As part of the proposed changes, we will be asking reporters to become as adept in digital as they are in print,” the note pointedly said to the dinosaurs in the newsroom who may be resisting change. “Reporters will eventually write digital headlines, SEO headlines and standfirsts. They will be taught how to add images and to use digital templates.”



Ominously for the paper’s subeditors there was this: “Section heads will in future manage the production of their sections for both print and digital. We will train them to use page templates, assign stories and complete the digital build. This training is designed to improve the skills of all reporters and section heads to ensure that they know how to work in an integrated news room.”

The Neighbourhood, a new Berliner-format newspaper to be distributed to inner-city suburbs in Sydney. Photograph: None

Paper first

While the giants of legacy publishing News Corp and Fairfax are winding back their print businesses amid a fall in the value of print advertising, a startup in Sydney is bucking the trend and launching a new local, hand-delivered print newspaper next month with an initial print run of 75,000. Called the Neighbourhood, the monthly publication is unashamedly aimed at the inner-city suburbs with a high-density arts, business and media community, and will be available in the inner east, inner west and inner city. It will be complemented by a website which will run reviews, features, local news and most importantly of all, foster a sense of community, the publisher, Jonathan Samway, and editor, Mark Mordue, told Weekly Beast. The launch of Neighbourhood comes as Crinkling News, Australia’s only newspaper for children, celebrates its first year in print.

Crinkling editor Saffron Howden says there is a print resurgence.

“Crinkling News is about to celebrate its first full year in print and our readership is steadily growing,” she told Weekly Beast.

“People are sick of click bait. And now there’s a growing desire for a return to tangible quality – something readers can hold in their hands and feel a part of.

“Newspapers were traditionally the heart of their communities. Many lost that role when they tried to be everything to everyone online.”

ABC feels heat over hot-desking

ABC staff in Melbourne have started moving into their revamped premises at Southbank and by the end of the financial year all TV, radio and online departments will be located in the modern building, along with the remaining staff from the retired ABC premises at Selwyn Street and Gordon Street, Elsternwick. But not everyone is happy with the flexible work environment policy, which everyone from investigative journalists to radio producers to managers has to adhere to. The rules are: clear your desk at the end of each day; embrace the technology – this will allow you to use all the meeting rooms/facilities; be mobile – make the most of all the opportunities in the building; support sharing; no camping in quiet rooms; encourage electronic storage over physical storage and arrange regular clean-ups, book rotations and above all avoid hoarding.

Early reports suggest there are some teething problems: 12 people for five desks in Radio National, and technology glitches as everyone moves on to ABC-issue laptops which they have to cart around with them between “hot desks”. To make the transition easier, management furnished staff with little welcome tote bags with an ABC coffee mug inside. They also appointed a “change champion” to walk around being enthusiastic. In case staff needed any more support there was a colour-coded care team: green for technical support; blue for emotional help and yellow for ergonomic support to set up your workstation.

ABC News helpfully uploaded this video talking up the benefits of hot-desking with Breakfast co-host Michael Rowland.

Excess baggage

ABC 7.30 had to clarify a high-profile report from last month about airport baggage handlers sleeping in squalid conditions in between shifts. The story by reporters James Thomas and Xanthe Kleinig featured a driver, George Orsaris, who said he feared for his job after speaking with 7.30 but wanted to expose working conditions at his employer, Aerocare.

“We get pushed to our limits,” Orsaris told Thomas. “Our pay doesn’t match it. We don’t get rest breaks and we get given a four-hour shift in the morning and then we have a four- or five-hour break and get a four-hour shift in the afternoon.”

But Orsaris wasn’t quite what he seemed, and the ABC has published this clarification: “A worker interviewed for the story, George Orsaris has informed 7.30, and Aerocare has confirmed that Mr Orsaris had not had a shift with the company for nine months prior to his interview for this program and had done less than two months work for the company. He maintains he was, none the less, still on the books and showed 7.30 a current Aerocare security card. The company maintains, therefore, that it was unreasonable to suggest he was risking his job. 7.30 also advises it has confirmed that a worker shown sleeping in a luggage container was not an employee of Aerocare.”

Freelance faux pas

An advertising feature on news.com.au caught our eye this week. “Things freelancers wish they knew before they quit their job” warned of the pitfalls of leaving full-time work behind, such as no super, social isolation and lack of motivation. “The freelance career isn’t all sun-drenched cafes and pyjama pants,” it warned. Given that News Corp had just informed its photographic workforce that they would be made redundant but could come back as freelancers, the timing could have been better.