Over 150 years of quality journalism in Newcastle will soon come to an end under a proposal by the Newcastle Herald's parent company Fairfax Media Limited.
In a communication to all Newcastle staff this afternoon Fairfax Limited CEO Greg Hywood, and Fairfax Regional CEO Allan G Browne announced proposed changes to the editorial production of the Illawarra Mercury and Newcastle Herald and the newspapers' weekly community papers.
It is proposed that editorial production for the titles be relocated to Fairfax Editorial Services (FES) in New Zealand.
Under the proposal, a total of around 66 full-time, part-time and casual positions, would no longer be required across the affected titles, representing around 45% of its current staff.
Consultations are currently underway with affected staff, with a call for voluntary redundancies. If sufficient numbers do not come forward then compulsory redundancies will be required.
While the CEO's believe that no reporting or photographic positions are affected by the proposal, the local community might have a different view, as losing close to half your staff will certainly have an effect on the quality of local journalism.
The Newcastle Herald is a profitable title, so it beggars belief why such changes would be necessary.
"Fairfax Media is on a journey from a predominantly print business to a predominantly digital business," Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood said.
The Newcastle Herald was formerly known as as The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate, (which in turn was born from two early newspapers The Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News (established in 1858) and The Miners Advocate and Northumberland Recorder (established in 1873).
The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate began publication on the 3rd April 1876 under the visionary leadership of James Fletcher, who created the district's first daily newspaper.
According to the late Dr John Turner, James Fletcher is arguably the father of the City of Newcastle who persuaded the many towns and mines, who were all competing with each other, to come together in the 1870s under an idea known as the Vend scheme, which combined the various mines and the miners, thus doubling the price of coal and wages overnight, thus creating Newcastle's most prosperous period. The instrument he used to unite the people of the various mining villages of the region was the Herald. The Herald became its united voice, and with that voice all the mining towns came to later form the Greater City of Newcastle.
The Newcastle Herald is interwoven into the history of Newcastle.
To have it out sourced to another country is unthinkable.
For more information have a look at this feature on Newcastle Journalism published back in 1966 to commemorate 108 years of journalism in Newcastle. Courtesy of the Cultural Collections of the University of Newcastle.
Read on click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uon/6030511835/
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