Staff at Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and other Fairfax papers take action after shock announcement of major cuts to news and business staff

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Staff at the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age in Melbourne and the Australian Financial Review have walked out in protest and will stay on strike until Monday after owners Fairfax Media announced it will lose a further 120 journalists.

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At emergency stop work meetings on Thursday journalists decided to take lengthy strike action to send a message to management that cutting more editorial jobs was the wrong strategy to save the business. Journalists from the Canberra Times and Brisbane Times also joined the action.

Staff voted to strike until the first shift on Monday. The action will affect the company’s online services and its Friday, Saturday and Sunday newspapers, a significant length of time for a staff walkout. Those on strike include 14 members of staff at the Age and SMH parliamentary bureau in Canberra.

Kate McClymont (@Kate_McClymont) AnneDavies: The @smh and @theage are vital to their communities. Our readers matter #fairfax out till Mon pic.twitter.com/GmgSvWbh1u

The vote came hours after staff were told the company would lose 120 journalists in its news and business divisions, and slash other editorial costs such as travel and freelance budgets in an attempt to reduce costs amid falling advertising revenue. It is the biggest loss of journalists since the company restructured four years ago, with the loss of 1,900 staff from across the entire business.

Adrian Lowe (@AdrianLowe) We're out til Monday #fairgofairfax #Fairfax pic.twitter.com/ZXB6As9Joe

Adrian Nesbitt (@Nez72) .@smh staff vote to stand up for quality journalism + strike over redundancy proposal pic.twitter.com/oRKtQx3N6V

Fairfax’s editorial director, Sean Aylmer, told staff at the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Age of the job cuts in an email on Thursday morning. The cuts to the Sydney and Melbourne operations are expected to hit all three mastheads.

“We will shortly enter a consultation period with staff and the MEAA [the media union] on a proposal to reduce costs across news and business in the Sydney and Melbourne newsrooms by the equivalent of 120 full-time employees,” he said.

“We believe that we can do this through redundancies, tightening contributor budgets and reducing travel costs and expenses. Our decisions will be based on our understanding of our audience and the importance of our brands.

“Our reporting will continue to focus on investigations, state and federal politics, justice and breaking news, sport, entertainment and business.

“While we are much more efficient in producing quality journalism, we still have a way to go. Change is a permanent part of our industry. It is a reflection of what we know about the ways our readers are consuming our stories. We must continue to evolve with them.”

SMH senior reporter and union delegate Marcus Strom said staff were really angry and shocked. “We look forward to talking to the company on Monday about how they have reconsidered this proposal which exposes them as having no clear vision of where they want the newsrooms to go,” Strom said after walking off the job on Thursday afternoon.

“And we’re ready to sit down and talk about best to share our how we’d like the newsroom to go in what every site acknowledges in is a period of reduced financial flexibility for the company.”

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Sources told Guardian Australia that Fairfax wants to reduce the amount of news it produces by one-third. After losing one-quarter of its editorial staff the company will go from publishing 9,000 stories a month to just 6,000, an insider said.



The news of job losses has shocked many Fairfax staff, coming as it has so soon after the company returned a net profit of $27.4m for the first half of the financial year despite declining newspaper circulation and revenue from print advertising.



Fairfax journalists didn’t hide their shock, with many taking to Twitter.



Saint Bhakthi (@bhakthi) Out we go #fairgofairfax no auction results, no Grand Prix coverage nothing until Monday pic.twitter.com/OcI51Td2hO

Paul Murphy, the chief executive of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, described the cuts as a body blow.

“It’s the staff on the newsroom floor who have driven the transition to digital and, through all the challenges, continued to produce high-quality independent journalism,” he said. “And this is the reward. Yet another savage cut to editorial. We will be fighting for every job.”



The social affairs reporter for the Age, Miki Perkins, also said staff would fight to keep their jobs.



Mark Burrows (@MarkWBurrows) Breaking mass walk out at Fairfax over 120 job cuts. pic.twitter.com/3nPQJlOPK7

While the smh.com.au website does good business for Fairfax Media the print products continue to fall in circulation and revenue, sparking continuing speculation that the Monday-to-Friday editions of the mastheads face closure.



Fairfax has already closed its Tullamarine and Chullora print sites and made other savings through cutting staff, closing newsrooms and foreign bureaus and by printing and distributing fewer print copies.

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Last month Fairfax reported print advertising revenue was down by 14% and its property website Domain was propping up the company’s overall profits.

Lisa Visentin (@LisaVisentin) Out we go. About 120 SMH journos walk out, the number the company wants axe across Fairfax #fairgofairfax pic.twitter.com/DxF2Y3twgi

News of another round of redundancies comes after announcement of a major restructure and the departure of Andrew Holden, the editor-in-chief of the Age.

The reputation of the Sydney Morning Herald has been damaged in recent weeks by a column by Paul Sheehan which contained a false story of the woman “Louise”, who claimed she had been raped and beaten by Arabic-speaking men.

Sheehan has not been sacked but has “stood aside until further notice” after the editor-in-chief, Darren Goodsir, cited “unacceptable breaches of fundamental journalistic practice”.

The company said in a statement that it would continue to publish across print and digital despite the unprotected industrial action.



Greg Hywood, Fairfax Media’s chief executive officer, said the company is operating in an ever-changing highly competitive media environment which involves “rapid evolution of our publishing model”.

“The initiatives we have proposed today are part of that adaptation and are necessary to sustain high quality journalism,” Hywood said.



“The action follows the company making a proposal today to reduce costs across its news and business verticals in Sydney and Melbourne newsrooms by the equivalent of 120 full-time employees through a combination of redundancies, tightening contributor budgets and reducing travel costs and expenses. The proposal involves newsrooms becoming more efficient in producing quality journalism.”