No mercy: Fairfax errs in sticking with sub sack plan
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Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood has ignored union pleas to backflip on outsourcing subeditors, forging ahead with the controversial proposal and sending morale inside newsrooms at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald plummeting. In an emailed missive to staff this morning obtained by Crikey — complete with a mess of track changes inserted by spin doctor Sue Cato — Hywood urged journos to “keep the big picture and longer term ambition for Fairfax Media in the frame”. The statement said 82 redundancies would be spread across the four major metro mastheads, a reduction of just eight full-timers on the original plan. All down-table subbing would be outsourced to controversial outfit Pagemasters by June 30. While the CEO “appreciated” the input of staff, there were scant new roles announced — a “story editor”, “page editor” and a “readers editor” will be created in Sydney and Melbourne to address inevitable issues. He wrote:
Cato, a Fairfax favourite and veteran crisis management expert, seems enamoured with adjectives and hyperbole, inserting words like “success”, “ultimately”, “intensely” and “strategic imperative” into the original text. They suggest Fairfax had made up its mind well before a meeting with union representatives and staff this morning, with the amendments made over a 15-minute window from 7.06pm to 7.21pm last night. Other changes are made by Hywood EA Lenore McCotter and company secretary Gail Hambly (view the full log of changes here).
Members of the Fairfax joint-house committee comprising Mel Ryan and Greg Baum from The Age and Stuart Washington from The Herald met at Fairfax’s Pyrmont edifice this morning alongside Louise Connor, Bede Payne and Chris Warren from the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Age CEO Don Churchill, Sydney HR director Greg Moses, SMH publisher Peter Fray and metro chief Jack Matthews represented Fairfax, with Hywood himself nowhere to be seen. Deputy chair of The Age house committee and respected senior journalist Michael Bachelard slammed the decision this morning. “Fairfax has not moved substantially from its original plan, despite five days of intensive effort from its top production staff to make them see sense,” he told Crikey. “We fear that this will substantially reduce the quality of writing that readers can expect in newspapers with a reputation for quality built up over hundreds of years. “We welcome the small concessions they’ve made, but our experienced, highly qualified staff will be forced to apply for new jobs which will put them under immense pressure.” Staff at The Age, he says, are “sad, angry and extremely disappointed” by what he calls management “intransigence”. “Our readers will also feel strongly about this and we hope that if they love their newspaper they will email or write to the company to express their feelings,” he said. “We will continue fighting this in every forum with every effort to try and make management see sense.” After days of tense negotiations involving senior subeditors after Fairfax’s initial announcement last week, two proposals were submitted to executives for their perusal. An initial idea involving a slimmed down sub-hub within Fairfax’s Melbourne and Sydney offices was rejected by management. A second so-called “crown jewels” model would have allowed 60 redundancies but let senior “super subs” control the most important pages of the book, comprising the first few news and business pages, the op-ed area and all of sport. Both were rejected. The MEAA issued a statement late this morning condemning the plan and highlighting the lack of clarity around the new roles: “Fairfax’s plan to cut costs by axing its in-house production staff has met with a huge groundswell of opposition both within the company and from the general public.” It noted that staff had handed Fairfax a 1000-strong petition calling for management to rethink their plan and that a Facebook page had gathered more than 900 fans in three days. According to an audit of experience at The Age conducted by a senior subeditor, the collective experience that will be lost by subeditors, artists and designers in Melbourne adds up to about 1500 years in journalism. “This has been ignored by management,” the legendary figure said. “You can’t put a value on experience, but apparently the bean counters at Fairfax can.” Sacked staff have been told they are free to apply for their old jobs with Pagemasters, for which they will apparently be given priority. Meanwhile, a stop work meeting for Fairfax staff has been planned for 4.30pm to discuss options for a possible company-wide strike. |
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14 Comments
What exactly makes this Pagemasters “outfit” “controversial”?
Do they neglect to query journalists when their stories fail the “who what when where why” test?
Let me get this right, Andrew.
Fairfax staff, employees of an organisation that in tandem with the Murdoch Morass have been this countries chief cheerleaders for deregulation and the benefits of outsourcing for as long as I can remember - now want us to feel sympathy because a few of their own number are now on the receiving end?
Maybe it just never occurred to those people who sat editing one Fairfax article after another which extolled the virtues of elevating “shareholder value” above all else in our society - that one day this particularly fat, voracious chicken was destined to come home to roost in their own backyard
Meanwhile, 90% of our media sit salivating over their next got-cha moment, up to their eyeballs in the adrenalising blood bath of cock fight journalism, completely oblivious to oblivion that all this news-as-infotainment narcissism will no doubt ultimately plunge our once lucky country into.
Of course, chicken little only ever gets a run in the mainstream media when it’s the interests of our economic elite upon whom the sky is metaphorically about to fall
Face it Andrew, this is but another salutatory warning of things to come destined to pass unheeded
At 2pm SMH online carried this:
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/mcdermott-claims-bowlingcoach-mantle-20110512-1ejta.html
I can see one typo in a caption and several factual errors in the para immed below it.
Pot? Kettle?
Looking at the errors in the letter, it appears that they really need subeditors.
Mr Crook is merely a sock puppet for his MEAA mates, who are essentially a bunch of bureaucrats. The subs will keep subbing, they’ll just move from the comfortable lodgings at Spencer Street (all lovely open plan, views, services) to something smaller at AAP. Where they have to do some work. The ones who don’t go will get paid a very large redundancy.
The really queer part of this is: why can’t Fairfax get the same people to do in the Fairfax office what they do at AAP?
At least Chicken Little Beecher can shut up now - it’s his mate that’s pulled the rug.
This has Roger Corbetts mark all over it - Chairman of Fairfax. He has done a Woolworths on them
All these comments about typos are a reminder of how important quality subediting is to readers.
Jean - I’m afraid the ‘controversial’ tag is attached to Slavemasters because they are notorious for keeping costs down by pressuring employees to do minimal editing and just churn stories through - just a once over and spellcheck. An safety net of quality journalism is lost, which brings the term ‘false economy’ to mind.
Moz - You may prefer News Ltd to Fairfax, but gloating at experienced journos losing their jobs is particularly classy. I suspect you have no idea how hard people at Spencer St work.
I’m really disturbed at how few comments there are on this story and indeed that some people don’t seem to comprehend what this awaful Fairfax decision emans quite apart from people losing their jobs.
Pagemasters is 45% owned by News Ltd- that alone should worry everyone. Do we really want all newspaper publishing in the hands of one company ?.
This is a sad day.
see how important sub-editors are !. I can’t get a thing right.
The circulation figures were released today and all the papers were either flat or down. Weekend AFR down 14% and weekday AFR down 2% again, just 72,000 sold a day.
The papers are declining, which is a shame, how will I start the fire?
Declining, despite their best efforts to give them away.
@Oscar: one company or two, is that a lot of difference?
OSCAR JONES
Look on the bright side, you can all always apply for job with News ….. gfawww! gfawww!
How deliciously satisfying it is to see all you Fairfax fruit loops staring blankly at the abyss.
ps. and note that the dinosaur known as Mike Carlton is utterly silent - not moving a muscle - where’s the bravado now you hideous hypocrite?
Wow Mr Crook. This certainly stirred the pot - black or any other colour.
Many many years ago, Joyce Belfrage (http://www.abc.net.au/corp/communications/you/stories/s1958734.htm) warned that if you lost your Sydney tv job at Seven, you only had three more employers to go … I guess the field’s a bit narrower in the newsprint world of today.
I’ve worked as a sub for the past 10 years (recently quit) and have dealt with Pagemasters for the past three.
This move will be an epic fail as that company is a copy sausage factory.
I believe, in time, that from the ashes of this explosion of poor product will rise again an appreciation of quality content.
Until then, I’ll be working in sales.