ABC News to bear brunt of job cuts as division refocusses on digital delivery
Kate Torney, ABC news director
One in four of the proposed 400 ABC job cuts will come from the news division, with 100 positions set to go as part of the restructure of the national broadcaster.
However around 70 new positions will be created in a new digitally focused news team with an investment of $20m set to be put into developing breaking and rolling coverage online and on mobile devices, as the broadcaster looks to reach younger audiences.
Addressing staff this lunchtime director of news Kate Torney said there will also be changes to the way it runs foreign bureaux, with new ‘mega bureaus’ in Washington, Jakarta, Beijing and London. However the Auckland office will shut with New Zealand coverage coming from Australia, and the bureaux in Tokyo, Bangkok, New Delhi and Jerusalem will be “home based operations” led by a video journalist and producer based locally.
Possibly you could employ one of their better subs yourself – “bear” the brunt, not “bare” please.
hi Weasel,
Thanks for the flag – another journo or two would be a luxury!
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
You ‘bear’ the brunt, not ‘bare’ it.
Alex, given the very large number of journalists who will be departing from the ABC maybe you could entice one or two help out at mUmBRELLA. Just a thought.
Er … “ABC News to bear brunt of job cuts”??? Net result from NewsCaff is 30 jobs out of the 400 to go with an EXTRA $20mil in budget allocation and “a new business team” added while the rest of the ABC now has to suffer a $274mil cut to pay for it. And despite all of that additional largesse paid for by everyone else, news bulletins are being “cut back to just five minutes” and after 8pm it’s “national” (ie Sydney) so the NewsCaff staff have even less work to do that at present. Strange choice of headline Alex, I’m sure that the ABC staff who are actually losing something as a result of this restructure will be delighted.
CJ there are 100 jobs to go out of 400 in news. The 70 new jobs are all new jobs, doing new things, they are not replacements so it is just not possible to suggest the net loss in just 30.
Lindsay, please check your facts “net reduction of about 35 full-time positions” is a direct quote from Kate Torney. The only reason for this farce of “100 redundancies” followed by “70 new positions” is so Kate can target the people she doesn’t want and hire a whole new batch (on lower wages). It’s the same with the state directors. The SA one has been vacant for over a year without the job ever being advertised, so Scott knew he was going to cut them back then. The funding reduction is just his excuse for doing what he planned anyway – turn the ABC into the SNO (Sydney News Organisation).
CJ my facts seem to be spot on. You are right when you write there will eventually be a net reduction of about 35 full time jobs. That follows the removal of about 100 journalists from news and then the creation of about 70 new positions. Which is what I wrote on my post at 5.50 pm today. Then there is the 300 more who will also be going.
Just what Scott intended to do is guesswork, but what he has done in not. As things stand 400 people will be out of work because of budget cuts Tony Abbott said would not happen.
CJ you might like to remember Mark Scott said today, “We anticipate that more than 400 people – close to 10 per cent of our ongoing workforce – face potential redundancy as we adjust our activities over coming months.” All those people will be looking for work. It will be of little comfort to them to be told 70 new jobs will be created at some time in the future.
They can start by dropping Kerry O’Brien as a host for Four Corners. He’s no longer on staff but paid as a contractor to come in and record hostings once a week – give the job to a staff member and save $200k.
@Lindsay: you had better find some better info. The facts here are quite plain: not much cutting is happening in editorial. Most of the people reduction (300) is in admin. Little change in actual product, with an unspecified new focus on “digital”.
What is especially ridiculous and a sign of very poor judgement is the continued shrinkage of the areas that really make Radio National – the specialists. What we will get instead is “business” news – another batch of Alan Kohler Inc.
Scott is at fault here, when it should be a scandalous and petty government intrusion. Instead, he essentially proves Turnbull right.
@Huh? I am not sure you understand just what is happening at the ABC or not. In general terms about 400 people are to lose their jobs. 100 or so will come from news. That leaves about 300 from other areas. Some these will be journalists, some clerical all working in non news areas. But regardless of just who does what, while the people may be going, the work will not. Those who remain will have to do it. If you think the journalists will just carry on unaffected you are wrong. I can assure you, as I have worked in two organisations where support staff have been retrenched, those who remain get extra duties. In both companies quallity suffered. Just as there are adjustments already announced about program down grading at the ABC.
Turnbull said a lot of things about the ABC, so far he has been wrong about everything other than there are cuts.
@Lindsay: The actual reduction is 330, of whom 30 are editorial. I’m not sure what you experience is, but I have close knowledge of operation in news and it is abundantly clear that eve the most basic application of good practice would improve the day to day work load. Getting rid of 40 managers will probably make people’s work easier.
The real issue here is management. I just don’t think Scott has a destination. He simply wants to enjoy a long, high profile trip.
@Huh? when 400 people lose their jobs, 100 of them in news, it is just not true to claim only 330 are gone. Yes at some point some new jobs will be created but that will not be of any great comfort to those who have gone. Also those new jobs are in new areas so that will not help those left trying to cope in the older areas.
As for improving the day to day work load that has not what has happened as the result of massive staff reductions at either News Corp or Fairfax. Both organisations have suffered considerable quality loss and both are producing newspaper much smaller than before. Nor has it made life easier for the journalists who have remained. Most are now doing what others used to do while struggling to keep up with their old work load.
I love your logic Jack. So when Vettel leaves Red Bull they just replace him with a mechanic?
Just like you engage the gearbox before driving off, you should engage your brain and some logical thought processes that extend beyond the time of a single knee-jerk before typing.
@Lindsay: you really do need a reality check. Comparisons with news or fairfax are irrelevant. Just as today’s silly comparison of the ABC with FTA TV in the Oz.
The collapsing ad revenue in print has withdrawn the money to pay. The ABC is funded. There simply is no comparison in terms of effect on work.
But even if there was the actual head count reduction in the ABC news departments is small and judging from the breakdown it is clear that the bulk of it is in taking away state based 730 programs.
My general point us that the ABC has a very long way to go before its work practices compare with best practice. Which is not a slight on those doing the hard work, but a criticism of lazy and indulgent management.
Huh?, I am sorry you have misunderstood the point I was making about News Corp and Fairfax. I was pointing out the decline in the numbers of journalists at both organisations was followed by a decline in quality. I made no comment about why the newspaper industry chose to down grade their operations. We can expect a similar decline is quallity at the ABC after 400 people working there depart. The addittion of 70 new people will have no affect on the existing programs at the ABC because the new jobs will all be in new areas. As for the ABC not adopting what you call best practise, who are you suggesting does things better? It would be an interesting topic – and might take many hours – as there is no other organisation doing what the ABC does.
And furthermore: If you have a look at the barbaric manner in which the relatively small number of editorial folk are being laid off, you will get my point about how totally inept the Scott regime is. They have effectively told groups of people that they all are at risk, and that those to go will be told in a MONTH. To make matters worse they have invented a retrospective performance analysis with a ridiculous slate of supposed criteria to be applied to those who are subject to this experiment.
This all works well for a management team that avoids decisions, hides from accountability and wants to play politics with every option. It is an awful way to manage people in this situation.
I hope Turnbull sacks the board if they don’t dire Scott for this debacle. Let’s see what his performance criteria are nowadays?
Huh? It would seem you have an ally in the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance federal secretary Christopher Warren who has been reported to have said, “Management has adopted a bizarre approach to identifying jobs to be lost that targets individual employees. The smart approach would be to offer voluntary redundancy that allows those who want to leave to go and those who want to stay to be plan how the work will be done with fewer staff. Trying to reverse engineer such massive job and funding cuts is nonsensical and foolish.” Not much in this for Scott to be happy with.