Fairfax tells staff it will reduce editorial budget by $30m annually and focus on popular stories that attract more readers

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age will employ fewer staff journalists, use more contributors and syndicated copy and narrow the subject areas they cover, Fairfax Media has announced.

The announcement follows Friday’s discovery by the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance of a secret document outlining Fairfax Media’s “finalised editorial strategy”.

Fairfax told staff on Wednesday it planned to reduce the editorial budget by $30m annually – by cutting staff and other costs – and overhaul the way it practises journalism across all its city mastheads and websites to focus on popular stories that attract a large readership.

Fairfax Media planning another shake-up, secret document reveals Read more

In his first major statement since being appointed as managing director of Australian Metro Publishing, Chris Janz did not specify how many journalists would lose their jobs but said everything from deadlines to commissioning stories to editorial structure would change.

Fairfax also signalled a shift to the right of politics with unusually pointed statements about being pro business and pro market-based solutions.

“Our pro-investor, pro-consumer view of business is central to our influence in the economic and business community,” the company said in a five-page document titled Metro Journalism – The way ahead.

“We believe in the merits of market-based solutions to economic challenges and an Australia that rewards aspiration and hard work. We want to be at the political centre of the rigorous debate over how best to achieve these important objectives.

“However, we will continue to strongly argue that safety nets are necessary to protect the vulnerable and that the state has an important role to play in areas such as health, education and the environment.”

The redundancies follow the loss of a further 100 journalism jobs last year as the company continued to lose advertising revenue from its printed products.

Fairfax Media announces half-year profit and plan to keep printing newspapers Read more

Fairfax says it will keep printing newspapers for several years but will now focus on digital media. “With tight resources, and multiple platforms to serve, we need to make smart decisions about what stories we pursue and how we cover them,” it said.

Citing a New York Times report which said too many stories lacked significant impact and were read by relatively few people, the company said it would provide the stories people wanted.

“Our goal is to increase the proportion of stories that reach a larger readership,” Fairfax said. “Of course there will be stories that need to be told, even if they don’t reach a large audience. As a trusted, quality publisher it is our duty.”

It said the digital advertising business demanded stories which attract a “wide audience” and the editorial strategy was to focus on those areas.

“We will make smart decisions around stories through better commissioning and rigorous editing. We need to ask questions like, ‘is this piece of journalism worth paying for?’ And, ‘what are we aiming to achieve by writing this story, producing this video or graphic?’

“While quality content is our raison d’etre, scale remains important to our digital advertising business. As subscriptions grow in importance, we can’t lose focus on producing great stories that are of interest to a wide audience. We must attract a large audience, keep them engaged, and convince them to return. We can only do so through high-quality journalism.”

Fairfax chief appoints 10 men and just one woman to steer company into the future Read more

Fairfax journalists will be retained to cover federal politics, state and local news, investigations, world news, business and the economy, sport and breaking news.But in other areas such as entertainment, arts, travel, food and parenting, Fairfax will use contributor and syndicated content.

The company said it would make it clear to readers which stories were not produced by its newsroom and would avoid clickbait “defined as headings that don’t represent the content”.

The strategy applies to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, Brisbane Times and WA Today but not to the Australian Financial Review.

MEAA’s director of media, Katelin McInerney, said: “Fairfax journalists have delivered in spades for the company: more readers than ever and record digital subscription numbers. The announcement from the company today leaves more questions than answers. We are looking for a genuine consultation that draws on the expertise of the editorial floor and ensures any restructure enhances Fairfax core strength – its journalism.”

Meetings between the company and staff are taking place on Wednesday and Thursday across the country.