The union representing journalists, the MEA, is concerned that News Corp is embarking on a round of redundancies with photographers and editorial production staff losing their jobs.
MEAA says it understands about 25 jobs will be lost – 16 photographers, six in centralised production and three editorial roles in Hobart.
The union says this is happening months after News closed mastheads and restructured its local community and regional newspaper businesses.
“When so many redundancy rounds follow hard one after the other, it creates a climate of uncertainty and fear for the staff who remain. It also piles on the pressure as they try to cope with the inevitable increased workload," says MEAA Media acting director Adam Portelli.
“Losing so many photographers whose images tell their own powerful stories, means many years of experience and particular skills will be lost.
"Also, production staff are the gatekeepers of quality in a newspaper – at a time when media credibility is vital to retaining valued readers, any loss of key production roles is deeply regrettable.”
MEAA will meet with members at News Corp and will continue to support them during this process.
A News Corp Australia spokesman:
"We're making a limited number of our staff redundant as we move to a new way of working similar to many news organisations internationally, and reflects the successful model we've established for our News and Sport Networks, which are generating strong subscriber growth and brilliant, specialist journalism, and will complement the soon-to-launch Australian Business Network to deliver the best in finance reporting."
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