Fairfax Media management says strike is ‘unlawful’ and will dock striking journalists’ pay

The strike action belongs in the prehistoric era. Journalists who take the action clearly don’t understand how newspaper execs think. The execs get to see how the websites and newspaper move along relatively unscathed for a day or two. Web traffic barely changes and newspaper circulation remains stable. At the same time, the company saves plenty of cash on not paying journos. In the end, the strike does nothing but remind execs that life without all of these journos isn’t that bad.

Just a reminder that Fairfax Media made a profit this half, and even spent $112m on a share buyback

Yes a profit generated by Domain, not the mastheads . Take Domain out of the equation I suspect the publishing size of the business would be seen to be unprofitable

Dear J,

God forbid a publicly listed media company make a profit!

Also in view of the massive slashing already undertaken at FXJ one might think those cost savings were responsible for that profit.

Deeply saddened that staff are going but there are better ways to deal with the matter than a strike. Lots of options for staff to hit management with.

It is often a battle to find the real news stories and separate them from useless pieces of “content”. Then there are the stories that are nothing more than cross promotion for TV programs. The papers (both print and digital) are fast losing value with the loss of essential skills such as decent investigative journalism.

I do feel sorry for the decent journalists who are being pushed aside by sensationalist and comedic click bait content writers but the writing has been on the wall for a while.

There are less and less reasons to buy the print version as there is little in-depth news to read. The digital business model is seriously flawed as it is all too easy to smash pay walls.

Ad-blockers cleanse the paper of ads that aren’t good enough to be bothered with in most cases. Consumers are sick and tired of being pestered and can smell trickster “marketing content” and “native advertising a mile off so its hardly surprising that ad-blockers have such wide-spread use. All this does little for the revenue required to pay journalists salaries.

All this adds up to the ad industry simply doing better work without the pestering, shady, trickster rubbish that passes for online campaigns. Perhaps then online newspaper campaigns may be worth the investment to support online newspapers.

Axel: Domain relies very heavily on print ads.
Peter: Fairfax management has always had a childish relationship with its employees and unions. Hywood in particular and others like Hambly were well known for their cosiness with unions. If they had any real idea they would have put managers in place who can manage these issues.
This will end badly, but slowly.

Didn’t realise they had any journalists left !?!? Perhaps they’re keeping the photo desk to get their images back after flogging them to that shonky overseas outfit – that went bust – then they’re going to start from scratch, reporting on what happens on Twitter ? #Fail

Looks like the Fairfax journos have lost touch with reality. The majority of journalists working these days are very young, and they are happy to do the job for practically nothing, which Fairfax managers know perfectly well. The writing’s been on the wall for years now. The other day an editor at Fairfax told me she was earning $55,000 per annum, full-time, and has to work shifts for that.
$55,000 was my salary as an editor ten years ago, which was by no means a high salary back then. So, if that’s the going rate for a “senior” role now then I’d happily walk out of Fairfax and never come back. Ironically, it’s those poor graduate journalists that keep churning out articles about the high cost of living in Sydney, and how they will never be able to buy their own place. Perhaps if they changed careers they would be able to.

Oh and perhaps the exec management team also? Is there truly an ounce of true tech talent and modern day leadership among this lot at the ‘top’ in their ‘top down’ organisation?
http://www.fairfaxmedia.com.au.....management

It is going to fail. If you keep sacking the content makers what are you going to have left to offer the audience?

Advice to the content makers: form your own digital publications!!

There are times when journalists have no choice but to take strike action just to get the management to stop what they are doing and listen to people who know more about how to run a newspaper than they do.
If anyone thinks that is wrong then please point out something the managemnet at Fairfax has got right in the past two decades.

In 2013 Hywood said: “Adam Warden has come on board to oversee our transformation program, with both cost and revenue objectives. Adam’s responsibilities include maximising our performance in a number of areas where we are looking to substantially develop our business – events, content marketing, SME digital and marketing services and data.”

Move forward to 2016 and the latest round of job cuts. Surely the board, shareholders and staff should be asking executive management for an update on this much publicised strategy. None have developed substantially – some not at all or sideways at best. Whilst the other half of it has simply disappeared as quickly as the person appointed to oversee it.

Where is the accountability?

One notes the memo escalates the courtesy level from ”Hi” to ”Dear All”

@ accountability: I remember Hywood announcing these “substantial” new revenue streams back in 2013 and we’ve heard no word of them since, or seen any revenues for this stuff broken out in Fairfax results. Guess they haven’t been so substantial afterall .(and BTW Adam Warden left the business over a year ago. Guess he finished transforming the business). Completely agree –why do these allegedly smart business journos and commentators, analysts etc never hold execs like Hywood accountable for the hollow promises and pronouncements they make?

@liam etc: Hywood has been in spin cycle for some time now and seems to attract no scrutiny. Forget the board, which has plainly been absent for decades. Shareholders have somehow ignored the two themes. One is the digital first theme which presently shows every sign of regarding the editorial quality to something less than click bait. It also shows no sign whatever of making any money. The other is the pretends that domain is a product or business independent of the various mastheads that host its ads. It ain’t.
Add in the film flan like the much vaunted events business, you get the picture.
Hywood and his coterie meanwhile spend their time in cost embrace overlooking Hyde park, wondering when the game is up.

This has only caused a lot of embarrassment to Fairfax and ridicule by the other media. Already 2CC Canberra is running ads saying that their news “is always reliable” and that they “never go on strike”.

Rinse and repeat. How long can Hywood continue to blame the shifting and highly competitive media environment? After five years in the top job, shouldn’t Fairfax be starting to see real results from his big initiatives besides cost cutting and Domain? Staff morale and culture has been toxic for years. This is just another nail in the coffin. The way Fairfax treats their staff is deplorable and it comes from the top. Well overdue for a clean out at the top, to be replaced with fresh faces with real business/tech expertise.

If things had gone well at Fairfax Hywood would have been looking for pats on the back. As they have not he should be getting a kick in the bum. So too all those above him in the Fairfax food chain. They won’t. They will blame others and so nothing will change other than there will be less people in the building to blame for the things they can’t control.

This is a company run by useless kiss-arses with no regard or respect for real journalism who only want to line their pockets and take the glory, treats it’s staff like crap, and fills our news feed with amazing stories like Kim Kardashian posts new nude selfie. #ripfairfax

Simple solution: turn over all means of production in the organisation to grassroots-level employees. They have the best feel for the industry as they are the ones actually getting their hands dirty.

No strile for all regional journalists and photographers losing their jobs. No strike for thr thousands of FFX employees who had their jobs sent to India?
Celebrities posting selfies is what FFX now considers news. Not interested.