MEDIA RELEASE ON BEHALF OF MERCURY JOURNALISTS
Journalists at Tasmania’s Mercury newspaper last night (March 10) vowed to oppose the shifting of the paper’s news and sports editing functions to News Limited’s Melbourne subbing hub and affirmed that the Mercury’s historic role as the Voice of Tasmania had to be preserved by keeping it a locally produced newspaper.
A stopwork meeting attended by 32 reporters, photographers, graphic artists, section editors and sub-editors passed the following motions unanimously:
* Staff condemn management plans to outsource editing jobs to Melbourne as this will:
reduce quality and local content;
lead to the loss of irreplaceable skills and jobs;
lead to the loss of job opportunities and career paths for journalists;
undermine staff morale and loyalty and reduce the ability of the newspaper to attract quality staff in future;
and is a move incapable of being reversed that will leave the paper unable to operate as an independent entity.
* Staff call on local management to stand with us to defend the continued local production of the newspaper that proclaims itself as “the Voice of Tasmania”.
Editor-in-chief Garry Bailey proposes to shift the news and sports copy editing to the Melbourne subbing hub in July.
Already the Mercury’s world news and finance pages have been outsourced, and supplements previously produced in-house taken over by News Limited production hubs in other states.
Mercury outsourcing angers journos Mercury
MELBOURNE, March 11 AAP – Journalists at Tasmania’s Mercury newspaper are fuming over plans to have its news and sports pages sub-edited in Melbourne.
A stopwork meeting attended by 32 reporters, photographers, graphic artists, section editors and sub-editors was held on Thursday night to voice their anger at the move.
Plans were revealed last month to move most of the Mercury’s sub-editing and layout work from Hobart to Melbourne, where owner News Ltd’s so-called “sub hub”, News Central, is located.
The hub is part of News Ltd’s plans to centralise the sub-editing and design of its Victorian papers.
The meeting of staff unanimously agreed the plans to outsource the sub-editing would reduce the quality and content of the newspaper, lead to losses in jobs and career opportunities, undermine staff morale, and leave the paper unable to operate as an independent entity.
Pat O’Donnell from the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) said about eight or nine of the Mercury’s 90 editorial staff would likely be made redundant in the move.
He said that was in addition to 13 staff who had recently lost their jobs during a round of redundancies at the paper.
“It is a matter now of being realistic, and not just sitting back and accepting it,” Mr O’Donnell said.
Mercury editor Garry Bailey said News Ltd had not forced the paper to make any decision to move its sub-editing operations.
“I told staff I believed it was inevitable but we wanted to drive any changes … I felt we had to be independent,” Mr Bailey said.
He said he has kept staff informed on every development since first raising the matter with them in December last year.
“There has been no decision yet, but there has been extensive work done by myself and one other person and talks with News Central,” Mr Bailey said.
“I have been communicating with staff and they have been kept informed every step on the way.”
Mr Bailey said the local content of the paper would not suffer because reporters remain in Hobart.
He said centralisation of production of the paper’s car sales pages to Brisbane has even enabled him to add an extra reporter in the Hobart newsroom.
Mr Bailey would not say how many staff would be affected, but they would be redeployed on the paper or offered redundancy.
He said a decision would be made in April.
AAP
On Tasmanian Times 18 months ago:
The slick PR of another Walkley debate knocked off in the colonies.
Beautifully presented with a lovely talking head from the Guardian; who was intelligent and engaged, and funny.
But utterly, finally, useless. You could not help but feel that here was the engagement of media management and union, to provide the same truth: We’re going to be alright aren’t we?
Bullshit.
You are in more trouble than you will ever realise.
And no nice sculpted, censored presentations will make the slightest bit of difference.
Media is in the middle of revolution. As far-reaching and profound as the invention of the printing press.
And there, fundamentally, viscerally, was the problem with last night’s seminar.
It was all too touchy feely, all-too familiar media-speak, superficial, bland rolling out of cliche: how often did we hear of brand recognition, of business model?
Business Spectator’s Rupert Special: Rupert at 80, HERE
First published: 2011-03-12 05:13 AM
And Slate:
The Day Rupert Murdoch Turned 80
Chronicle of a birthday foretold.
By Jack Shafer
Updated Tuesday, March 8, 2011, at 4:42 PM ET
Satan was blue. He’d placed a big bet on Hitler, it didn’t work out as they planned, and then his deal with Stalin unraveled, too. The angels had scattered him and his allies from his castle outside Gstaad, which is why Satan found himself on this day, March 11, 1953, living in a tarpaper shack a couple of hundred miles north of Adelaide, South Australia, collecting beer bottles by the side of the road for cigarette money. He had not been so down since Milton had vilified him in that despicable piece of fiction, Paradise Lost. Mankind wasn’t so much rejecting evil but making evil on its own, without any help from him, he muttered.
Just then a passing Holden FX braked, and the unseen driver threw open the passenger door. The driver shouted, “Get in if you want a ride, I’m in a hurry.”
Satan pocketed a bottle and shuffled toward the car. Peeking inside, he saw a callow young man at the wheel. “Where you headed?” he said.
Satan did the Australian salute to chase the gathering bush flies from his face. He felt a coldness in the young man’s eyes, which surprised even him. “Up the road a bit, the grocery store.” Satan got in, and the man put the Holden into gear. The tires spat gravel as the Holden returned to cruising speed.
Satan hadn’t felt this sort of ambition vibe from anyone since he’d met the young King Leopold II.
“I heard you’ve been looking for me,” the young man said. “I’m Rupert Murdoch.”
“Me looking for you?” Satan said. “No. It works the other way.”
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Murdoch’s mouth opened in a laugh but no sound came out. He coughed and said, “Heard from my Oxford mates you might be in these parts, but didn’t expect to find you like this.”
Murdoch gestured to Satan’s wardrobe—a dusty overcoat wrapped over a T-shirt and ratty jeans. Satan swept the flies away from his nose again and spoke.
“Why would I be looking for you?”
“Because you and I are the same. We make deals. We make big deals. We make the biggest deals,” Murdoch said.
“And what deal would you want to consummate this fine Australian afternoon?”
Murdoch braked to turn onto a side road, where the dirt had hardened into corrugations that shook the Holden as it slowed.
“Your regular deal,” said Murdoch.
“My regular deal?” said Satan …
