Members of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) at The Daily Advertiser have launched a campaign to save the jobs of their colleagues. 

Fairfax Media intends to entirely eliminate local sub-editors and slash the number of photographers employed at The Daily Advertiser in Wagga Wagga from four to one.

Fairfax is planning to have Advertiser reporters take on additional sub-editing tasks to cover for the loss of the newspaper’s subs. Fairfax is also proposing to share resources with other papers in order to try to cover breaking news stories and sporting events.

Journalists at the Advertiser are seriously concerned about the impact the plan will have not only on jobs, but also the quality of the paper.

The Fairfax scheme is for the affected staff to be made redundant rather than redeployed.

Experience suggests that when you remove local sub-editors, the guardians of quality in the production process, errors creep into the paper and there is confusion due to the lack a lack of local knowledge, all of which combines to alienate the affected newspaper’s readership and advertisers.

MEAA members at The Daily Advertiser are seeking support from their journalist colleagues and supporters and are calling on the public and Country and Regional Daily Newspaper staff at other papers across NSW to join them in the campaign to halt what may be the first move in a plan to remove much-needed resources from country newspapers in the state.