Australia’s Fairfax to slash another 80 jobs

SYDNEY—Struggling Australian newspaper group Fairfax revealed Wednesday that another 80 editorial and photo positions are set to be axed, including at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Melbourne.

In a note to staff, managing director of Australian Publishing Media at Fairfax Allen Williams said 35 editorial positions, along with 30 photo jobs and 15 in lifestyle sections would likely go.

“The changes we are proposing are similar to the more progressive and efficient models being used by other media organizations around the world,” Williams said in the note seen by AFP.

“We must deliver our high-quality content in the most efficient way possible.”

The arrangements would see more copy-editing and page layout work done by external contractors with production jobs going from Sydney and Melbourne by year end.

Under the proposal, the lifestyle-oriented Life Media would restructure some of its divisions to make greater use of freelancers to deliver editorial content while on the images side, more work will be outsourced to external service provider Getty Images.

“Our photographic needs across all platforms continue to be commissioned by editorial however most assignments will be facilitated by Getty photographers for our publications,” the note said.

Fairfax sent shockwaves through Australia’s media sector in 2012 by announcing it was sacking hundreds of staff and putting its newspapers — the only serious rival to Rupert Murdoch’s vast Australian News Corp. holdings — behind a paywall.

Like many media groups, they have struggled with the transition to digital in a bid to combat sliding print advertising and circulation revenues.

The journalists’ union said the latest redundancies represented “an assault on the quality journalism that has been the hallmark” of Fairfax for more than a century and showed the company was incapable of deciding on production arrangements and sticking with them.

“The only decision the company seems capable of making is to keep cutting staff,” said Christopher Warren from the Media, Entertainment, Arts Alliance (MEAA).

“When do we reach the point of no return? Why isn’t more effort being made to protect and promote editorial quality and utilize smarter ways of working? At what point does Fairfax stop being a news organization and merely become a commissioning agency that outsources everything it does?”

Last August, Fairfax reported annual revenues were down 8.2 percent at Aus$2.0 billion but chief Greg Hywood said the company was “meeting or surpassing all critical milestones” in its transition online, which has also seen its mastheads go tabloid.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Billionaire Rinehart’s son sought $15-M ‘sorry payment’

SYDNEY – The son of Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, sought a Aus$15 million (US$15.4 million) “sorry payment” from his mother for how had she treated him over the years, a report said Wednesday.

Iron ore billionaire Rinehart is embroiled in a legal battle with two of her four children, including son John Hancock, over control of a family trust reportedly worth Aus$4 billion.

Hancock’s request is contained in documents tendered to the New South Wales Supreme Court as part of a dispute over the trust, set up by Rinehart’s father, the late Lang Hancock, in 1988, with the four grandchildren as beneficiaries.

Rinehart was due to be in charge of the trust, which holds a 23.4 percent slice of her company Hancock Prospecting, until the youngest grandchild turned 25 in 2011. Just days before, however, she said she wanted to alter the payout date to 2068 so they did not face a huge tax bill.

Emails between Hancock, his mother and her adviser tendered in court Tuesday show how he tried to come to a confidential agreement with Rinehart before the case went to court, the Sydney Morning Herald said.

In the emails Hancock said he would agree to delay vesting of the trust for an unspecified annual salary, while criticizing his three sisters’ ability to mount any kind of challenge.

“I doubt the other girls have the intellectual capacity to read the Income Tax Act which clearly defines that CGT (Capital Gains Tax) is disregarded under these circumstances, unless I… explain it in suitable baby language for them,” he wrote to his mother.

Hancock later demanded “a Aus$15m ‘sorry payment’ direct from GHR (Gina Hope Rinehart) for how she treated me over these last 15 years”.

Three of Rinehart’s four children, John, Bianca and Hope, originally took the mining magnate — worth an estimated US$17 billion — to court over her handling of the trust, arguing that she had breached her duties as trustee.

Hope officially withdrew from the legal action on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday Rinehart took legal action against a journalist working for the Sydney Morning Herald, owned by Fairfax Media, of which she is the biggest shareholder with 15 percent.

At the request of the mining magnate’s company, the Supreme Court of Western Australia issued a subpoena against reporter Adele Ferguson, who penned a biography of the billionaire, demanding her emails, notebooks and recordings of interviews she has conducted with John Hancock since September 2011.

Fairfax reported that it appears Rinehart wants Ferguson to reveal her sources for the book, which was published last year.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net