I was going to blog about how pathetic it was that I volunteered to be a parent helper on Sprog 1’s school excursion yesterday just so I could go to the IMAX theatre for free (it’s been a long time between movies), but there’s a heaviness in my heart that needs to be addressed. Fairfax journalists in Wollongong, Sydney and Newcastle were on strike yesterday. They walked out because Fairfax has chosen to retrench all its sub-editors in Newcastle and Wollongong and employ sub-editors in New Zealand to do their jobs instead. And I think it sucks. Big time. I did my cadetship on The Newcastle Herald, back when the idea of print journalism becoming obsolete was unthinkable. My heart breaks for the subs I know personally that are losing their jobs, and the ones I don’t. The profession of subbing has been underrated for too many years. A good sub-editor can make an average story great. A good sub-editor can show an ok journalist how to be a better one. A good sub-editor can save your arse. Yet sub-editing has been reduced to a skill that’s being out-sourced to the cheapest operator possible. It’s so wrong. It is so short-sighted. It sells readers short. It says we don’t deserve local knowledge or accuracy or snappy headlines or clever intros or smart captions or copy that flows from start to finish. And readers do deserve those things. Otherwise why buy a newspaper in the first place? I mean, I know less and less people are, but why give them more and more reasons not to? It’s not just about print media. Be angry about standards slipping for news reporting generally. Journalism is a maligned profession, but without GOOD, ACCURATE reporting we lose an important forum for debate and our world becomes smaller. Journalists work their butts off to expose, to campaign, to fight for the underdog, to expose the corrupt fat cat. I’m not saying changes don’t need to be made, that cuts don’t need to be found. But make smart cuts, not dumb ones. Look at the big picture, don’t take a piecemeal, hodge-podge approach.
If you’re a Novocastrian, please support your local journalists on Saturday, June 2, when they rally in Civic Park at 1pm.
I’d be there, but I have to go to jail (whole other story).
PLUS Check out this video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_IC_G-X1TM
housegoeshome 
thanks so much Alana for your support.
Loved your blog. So brilliantly written.
I agree. 100%.
Whilst I feel for those that have lost jobs, we have brought this on ourselves.
If the newspapers increase their price to afford the obvious higher wages expected…would that not reduce sales even more of print media?
Alana, you now blog…
How many of your followers would ‘pay’ for a ‘newsletter’ to be posted to them???
As much as I really enjoy reading your (very well written) posts, I, ashamedly, probably would not.
Also, does this not scream the same of internet buyers that take away jobs from the retail sector…Is this not the same thing?…
is there anyone not guilty of this?…
We want cheap, but are not prepared to work for for less to keep things ‘cheap’ and this is the result!
As a former Novocastrian myself, no, I am not happy with jobs going overseas but we are now reaping what has been sowed over the years and yet we still have the hyde and audacity to whinge about it. Get a grip Australia! This is what IS coming.
Miriana, you make some very good, scary points … particularly the one about not paying for my blog (I’ll just have to keep doing it for love). But I wish there was a better way to manage the transition from print to digital with the newspapers. It’s so sad to see the quality (and people) suffer so much. I would have thought a subbing hub for all of the Fairfax publications in a cheaper regional centre like Newcastle would be a more sensible solution, instead of some newspapers still having subs in-house, some having Pagemasters externally, and some using subs in another country.
LOL! Sorry Alana, I read it it for the love of reading it, but even if you kept doing it for love, I still wouldn’t pay for the cost to have it posted 😦
Centralising is a great concept idea and who knows if management looked at that option and it was ruled out for whatever reasoning but, as for regional centres like Newcastle (no idea on Wollongong though) being less expensive, that’s not necessarily true either. When looking at moving a business back to Newcastle, it turned out that Cardiff was not much less than Artarmon (rent wise) but other factors, like freight out of Ncle, were even more expensive.
Luckily, digital media would use very little freight but I agree, all other options to keep the jobs in Australia should be explored first before going offshore as you are right, we will lose the quality, and the people that brought that quality to the table forever.
I did my cadetship at Fairfax in Sydney. I find it alarming to see that they are doing this and there are rumours they are thinking of axing the Monday to Friday papers. When I started in journalism there was such pride in producing good work and I certainly remember my stories being “saved” by an eagle-eyed sub many times. But times have changed. In magazines, for example, the line between editorial and advertising seems increasingly blurred (it still shocks me to see a full page ad for a product, closely followed by a story featuring a personality plugging said product right next to it; that was heresy once) and I am amazed more readers don’t complain about that. Have they noticed that the quality of papers has dropped? Is that why sales have plummeted? Where are the readers in all this? What are they doing to save our papers? Or do they simply no longer have time to care? Troubled times in print media, peeps.
i just pray we find a way to save – and pay for – good journalism in the digital age.