AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER HISTORY GROUP NEWSLETTER ISSN 1443-4962 No. 49 October 2008 Compiled for the ANHG by Rod Kirkpatrick, 59 Emperor Drive, Andergrove, Qld, 4740, and Victor Isaacs, of Canberra. Ph. 61-7-4955 7838. Email:
[email protected] The publication is independent. COPY DEADLINE AND WEBSITE ADDRESS Deadline for the next Newsletter: 5 December 2008. Subscription details appear at end of Newsletter. [Number 1 appeared October 1999.] The Newsletter is online through the “Publications” link of the University of Queensland’s School of Journalism & Communication Website at www.uq.edu.au/sjc/ and through the ePrint Archives at the University of Queensland at http://espace.uq.edu.au/) 1 – CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS: NATIONAL & METROPOLITAN 49.1.1 THE BIG PURGE AT FAIRFAX Fairfax Media Ltd announced on 26 August that it planned to shed 550 jobs, 180 of them belonging to journalists (390 of the jobs are Australian and 160 are New Zealand jobs). Fairfax did not announce it quite as bluntly as that, instead describing its action within the context of a “business improvement plan”. It sent an email to all its employees, announcing “a major restructure of corporate and group services and significant initiatives to improve the overall productivity and performance of many of our businesses”. John Lyons, a former Fairfax editor, and Caroline Overington reported (Australian, 27 August 2008, pp.1-2): “Fairfax Media is abandoning quality journalism at its flagship newspapers, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, according to staff who yesterday rejected a company plan to shed 550 jobs. Chief executive David Kirk and his deputy Brian McCarthy told the Australian Stock Exchange and newspaper staff via email yesterday that Fairfax hoped to save $50 million by cutting the jobs in Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand – 5 per cent of its full- time workforce.” The company‟s metropolitan newspapers recorded a 9 per cent drop in profit in 2007-08.