Wellington - Australia's Fairfax Media announced Monday that
it was preparing to lay off about 40 sub-editors from the 190 it
employs on nine daily newspapers in New Zealand.
It said centralized 'hubs' of sub-editors would handle pages of
world and business news and feature articles for the five morning and
four evening papers, including the Dominion Post in the capital city
Wellington and The Press, which is published in the main South Island
city, Christchurch.
'Feature pages and world and business pages require an expertise
that is not always available at individual newspapers and, through
this proposal, we can ensure that all our readers will have the same
consistent standard of editing excellence,' executive editor Paul
Thompson said in a statement.
He said pages of local and sports news would remain the
responsibility of editors and sub-editors on the individual papers.
The company warned that more cuts could follow with additional
generic non-news pages such as TV listings and the weather undertaken
by providers for the whole group, and merging the sub-editors of its
two Sunday papers.
It was the latest retrenchment in New Zealand's media world.
Earlier this month, the national news agency, New Zealand Press
Association, announced it was laying off seven of its 55 journalists
and last year Television New Zealand cut nearly 60 news and current
affairs jobs.
APN New Zealand, which publishes the New Zealand Herald, the
country's largest daily, cut 70 sub-editors and outsourced work to a
centralized agency.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story