Striking Fairfax journalists have rallied in Sydney and Melbourne as the backlash grows against the embattled media company's decision to cull editorial staff.

The protests come on the first full day of a seven-day strike for staff at the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review in response to the company's decision to cut 125 staff in a bid to save $30 million.

That figure is reported to be approximately the same amount that Fairfax executives — including chief executive Greg Hywood — could claim in recent bonuses.

"This is money they're taking out of the company into their own pockets, at the same time they're taking money out of the newsroom," Sydney Morning Herald's striking science editor Marcus Strom said.

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Dozens of striking Fairfax staff in Sydney camped outside a hotel this morning ahead of a presentation by Mr Hywood to a business meeting.

"We are determined to get our message through to the company, to the people of Sydney, to the investors, the advertisers, that the board has to change its strategy," Strom said.

"It has to stop treating journalism as the bastard child."

The Fairfax cuts are just the latest in a long string of journalist job losses in recent years, with thousands of Australian journalists having been put out of work as traditional business models collapse.

Last week Channel 10 announced cuts were likely after recording poor revenues. Meanwhile, there have also been recent job cuts at News Corp newspapers, and experts are estimating Australia's printed daily newspapers have at best five years left.

'It's time for Government intervention to save media'

Fairfax Media staff in Melbourne are protesting during the first day of their week-long strike. ( ABC News: Margaret Paul )

South Australian senator Nick Xenophon said he believed it was time for the Government to intervene.

"Google and Facebook between them last year took in something like $3.2 billion in advertising revenue in this country," he said.

"A lot of it on the basis of using the intellectual property or copyright of media organisations like Fairfax and News and a whole lot of others."

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He said similar reforms are being considered in Europe and he has raised the idea with the Federal Government.

"The media reforms as proposed by the Government will only provide a stop-gap solution that will only provide a reprieve for some media companies," he said.

"I believe that if you want a long-term solution it must involve Facebook and Google paying their share of the copyright they use."

Eric Beecher, a former editor with Fairfax and now owner of the company Private Media which publishes Crikey, told ABC Radio Melbourne this morning he also believed there was a place for the Government to get involved.

"In France this has been recognised by government for at least a decade, and the French government pours in half a million dollars a year to subsidise journalism," he said.

"My argument is this is an issue for our civic society, our government.

"We need to have the debate, if thousands of people had been forced out of the court system people like you join would be thumping the table every day."