Queensland staff at News Corp Australia are pushing back against management plans to introduce individual subscription targets for journalists.
Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) members from News Corp recently met to air their concerns over the proposed KPI, noting editorial teams are limited in how they can, or should, promote and sell news stories.
“We are concerned about recent developments regarding subscription targets in Queensland and we reject management’s decision to move subscription and page view targets to individual journalists as a work performance KPI,” the National House Committee said in a note to MEAA members.
“We accept that we operate in a commercial environment but we note that management has the ability to market our stories to a greater extent than we do, and we cannot accept responsibility for how others sell our stories to readers.
“As journalists we will not submit to individualised targets or page view guarantees that can be used as a performance management or disciplinary. Our job is about much more than selling subscriptions.”
Union members have met with News Corp to discuss the issue and block the targets from being set for journalists.
AdNews has reached out to both News Corp Australia and the MEAA for further comment.
News Corp has followed many publishers in pushing a subscription model in the face of declining advertising revenue.
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