UNDER NORMAL circumstances, today I’d be doing what I normally do: travelling down the coast to cover an AFL match for The Age. It’s something I’ve been doing for 12 years, and consider a privileged part of my job. Not only is it fun, it keeps me on a contract for five months of the year (I won’t say six because in those 12 years the Brisbane Lions have seen September action once, and the Gold Coast Suns, in six full years in the competition, haven’t made the finals yet).
As many of you may be aware, Fairfax’s decision this week to cut another quarter of its workforce – well over 100 journalists, most of them from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age – has resulted in unprotected strike action. So I won’t be going to work today. This means forgoing a week’s pay, which I can ill afford, and we are all risking our jobs, but so it must be. Fairfax’s proposed changes include auditing contracted freelancers such as myself. Exactly what that might mean for me I’m not sure yet. They also intend to further reduce contributor rates from a per word to per article rate, targeting the arts section in particular. Wages growth has been negative for a long time in journalism (unless, perhaps, you’re one of those superstar right-wing columnists – a pretty crowded field in itself these days, as everyone tries to get a piece of the outrage).
As I also write a fair bit about arts and music for both papers, these changes stand to very directly affect me and others like me. They might not quite stop me from writing, but it will absolutely impact my ability to continue to cobble together a living from what I love doing.
Fairfax Media seems to have made no real attempt to look for alternatives to these cuts. Concerns over the boss’s $2.5 million bonus, and the exorbitant salaries and bonuses of those around him (which would have saved dozens of jobs on their own), were dismissed as irrelevant. Domain, the profitable part of the enterprise which takes real estate advertising, was recently split from the business. Of course, journalism – the core of Fairfax Media – was once sustained by these revenues; now journalism itself is treated like a drain on the coffers.
It should go without saying that we need good journalism and good writing now more than ever before.
Please show your support. You can start by taking out a subscription – including to Fairfax, despite everything. We have to face up to the fact that if we want to read about something other than what happened on Masterchef, we’ve got to pay for it.
And if you want to add your voice, you can watch this video made by my colleagues, and write to Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood (he of the extra $2.5 million for further driving a once-great company into the ground).
Solidarity to all my fellows, friends, colleagues and comrades at Fairfax, both full-time and freelancers, today and into next week. Not covering the federal Budget will make things very interesting.