Fairfax staff walked out of newsrooms in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane after the announcement that 120 editorial jobs – which the Media, Entertainment, and Art Alliance (MEAA) estimates is one-quarter of editorial workforce – will be axed.

Fairfax staff strike in Melbourne, Sydney, and Canberra. Source: MEAA

Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood, whose role is lately better described as Fairfax chief executioner, made the announcement Thursday, March 17, by e-mail. The cuts affect Sydney and Melbourne mastheads The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and Australian Financial Review.

The ‘ever-changing competitive media environment’ spiel was given, and Hywood said this round of cuts is ‘necessary to sustain high-quality journalism’.

‘The initiatives we have proposed today are part of that adaptation and are necessary to sustain high-quality journalism,’ he said.

It’s unclear if the job losses will apply to any photographers, but given there’s barely any left it seems unlikely.

The MEAA has condemned Fairfax’s move, highlighting the media empire produced a half-year profit of $27.4 million. Although this may be credited to other ventures, such as the growth of Domain Group, an online real estate marketing business.

‘It’s the people on the newsroom floor that have driven Fairfax’s transition to digital,’ Paul Murphy, MEAA CEO said. ‘Through all the challenges, they have continued to produce high quality, award-winning, independent journalism. And this is their reward: yet another savage cut to editorial.’

The Alliance is doing what it can to fight for Fairfax staff and negotiate an alternative to cutting hundreds of jobs and eroding the quality of news. An MEAA petition has garnered 11,200 signatures.

Respected, long-time reporters from Fairfax have criticised the latest round of cuts, fearing for their own jobs and speculating that the cost-cutting measures will diminish Australia’s quality journalism.

‘Worried for my own future and my colleagues, but this is also just a terrible day for journalism and media diversity in Australia,’ Jill Stark, Sunday Age writer tweeted.

There is fear that will fewer resources will result in weaker public discourse, damaging the ability to hold those in a position of power accountable.

‘We have not taken this action lightly but need to draw a line in the sand,’ Brisbane Times journalist, Amy Remeikis, said. ‘Because I believe in the power of the collective and taking a stand for what I believe in, and a healthy, resourced, diverse press is definitely up there, I stand with my colleagues to say Fairgo Fairfax.’

Lights out at the Fairfax Parliament House Bureau following the announcement. Or the newsroom of the future? Source: Bevan Shields/Twitter

And then, of course, there’s the sheer fact that these redundancies are putting highly qualified, trained individuals out of work.

‘We’ve tried to have an open and honest relationship with management in the last few years [about the challenges their facing] and this has just come as a real surprise and it’s floored a lot of people,’ The Age investigative journalist, Richard Barker, told 774 ABC Melbourne radio.

‘The saddest thing is seeing … the younger reporters who’ve started out and are really idealistic and wanting to be in the game for the right reasons — to see a few of them moved to tears about their own job security and those ones who’ve maybe just started having families and have got mortgages.’

The ‘futile’ 24-hour strike will not make Fairfax management budge, Mark Day, The Australian columnist declared, writing that ‘the end is nigh for a once-great newspaper empire’.

In 1999 he predicted print would be dead at 2025, but now believes the final nail in the coffin for printed Fairfax papers will be much sooner.