IN solidarity with The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, which have announced another 120 redundancies in a new round of cuts, the Canberra Times journalist Henry Belot has tweeted that the Canberra Times staff are going on strike too.
Canberra Times staff vote to strike for 24 hours in solidarity with Fairfax Media staff in Sydney and Melbourne.
— Henry Belot (@Henry_Belot) March 17, 2016
Other luminaries from that paper have added their voices.
Canberra Times staff vote to strike for 24 hrs in solidarity with staff at The Age and SMH #jobcuts #fairgofairfax pic.twitter.com/7uqircDEQ3
— David Pope (@davpope) March 17, 2016
On strike. Both in support of our @smh and @theage colleagues, and to protect the kind of quality journalism that is so vital to our future
— Christopher Knaus (@knausc) March 17, 2016
Journalists @canberratimes and @brisbanetimes have joined Fairfax strike
— Marcus Strom (@strom_m) March 17, 2016
UPDATE: Fairfax promise there will be a paper tomorrow:
Fairfax Media Limited [ASX: FXJ] advises that some journalists from mastheads including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Canberra Times, the Brisbane Times and The Australian Financial Review are taking unprotected industrial action relating to an announcement to staff today.
The company will continue to publish across print and digital as usual.
Fairfax Media Chief Executive Officer, Greg Hywood, said: “We are operating in an ever-changing highly competitive media environment which involves rapid evolution of our publishing model. The initiatives we have proposed today are part of that adaptation and are necessary to sustain high quality journalism.”
The action follows the company making a proposal today to reduce costs across its News and Business verticals in Sydney and Melbourne newsrooms by the equivalent of 120 full-time employees through a combination of redundancies, tightening contributor budgets and reducing travel costs and expenses.
The proposal involves newsrooms becoming more efficient in producing quality journalism.
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