Angry journos picket Fairfax offices
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Quick exit: The Age's editor Andrew Jaspan was the first staff member sacked. (ABC TV)
Fairfax newspaper journalists are picketing outside their offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Wollongong and Newcastle to protest against the company's decision to cut 550 jobs.
The company announced it was cutting 5 per cent of it workforce on Tuesday, with a significant amount of job losses to come from editorial departments.
The editor of The Age, Andrew Jaspan, was the first staff member to be sacked.
Staff at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review, the Illawarra Mercury and the Newcastle Herald walked off the job yesterday and say they will not go back to work until Monday.
Sydney Morning Herald journalist Gerard Noonan says the cuts will threaten the media's ability to hold politicians and the powerful to account.
"Journalists have long argued with incoming management over the last 10 to 15 years that it's important for the state of democracy that there are more voices looking at the situation, looking at political developments, from a Melbourne viewpoint, from a Newcastle viewpoint, from a Sydney viewpoint," he said.
But media analyst Steve Allen says Fairfax is protecting itself against a global downward trend in newspaper circulation.
"All that Fairfax is doing is saying 'Right, it's very clear from global patterns that the internet is really impinging on revenue and the growth prospects for newspapers all around the world. We need to take pre-emptive action'," he said.
Fairfax is not commenting on the matter.
