Fairfax journalists working for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review are on strike until Monday.
What do newsagents think about this?
My view is businesses need the freedom to make staffing decisions regardless of whether the decisions are right or wrong. So I support Fairfax management doing what they think is right. As a news consumer, however, I am drawn to sources I trust. Today, I trust Fairfax less because of losses from their editorial team. While I still trust them more than any News Corp. outlet, they are heading to a point where they are not in my top five go to news outlets.
At the heart of the issue is that people are not prepared to pay for the quality of journalism Australia needs. This will be realised in a time of crisis, when a scandal is uncovered that would have been discovered sooner had we had a strong fourth estate.
A business should be able to hire and fire as the needs of the business change. No point in paying a group of employees for sitting around doing nothing.
Unions won’t agree but they don’t pay the bills.
The journos can walk off the job whenever they want.
They just can’t expect to be paid for it, and they should carefully consider the fact that when they go on strike, barely any of their readers notice…
Well, this reader has noticed – the strike and the impact of reducing editorial quality in the Sydney Morning Herald in recent years. I still have a preference for reading the newspaper in print – I spend all day in front of a computer screen, so I don’t want to spend even more of it catching up with the news. The decline of the SMH has been very disappointing. I can understand the business’ need to reduce costs, but reducing the very people who create the ‘product’ in the first place seems an unusual way to go about it and one that isn’t likely to arrest the decline in readers.
A book that explains is all.
Flat Earth News
Nick Davies
The striking journalists should reflect on the digital disruption article in today’s AFR. Fairfax is fighting to remain a major force. They should engage with the management and avoid being a legacy of change. If they doubt Fairfax’s resolve, they should look at what happened some 25 years ago in UK with Rupert Murdoch and Wapping.
They should also read about the Seattle Post Intelligencer. A respected newspaper of record in Seattle. Circa numbers close to The Age. Shuttered the print edition five years ago for a digital only model. This article from Crains is good on this topic:
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20150403/BLOG003/150409932/report-fate-of-the-detroit-news-could-soon-be-decided