PR agency shuts doors in ‘solidarity’ with Fairfax Media journalists

May 5, 2017 9:57

Independent PR agency Thrive PR + Communications has given its staff the day off today in ‘solidarity’ with Fairfax Media journalists who are currently on a week-long strike in protest of job cuts.

Sydney Morning Herald and The Age journalists went on strike on Wednesday for seven days in response to an announcement that 125 full-time jobs is facing the chopping block.

Last night, Leilani Abels, founder and MD of Thrive PR, posted to LinkedIn that the agency would be closing its offices today “in solidarity”.

Abels told Mumbrella: “No, we are not on picket lines today, but we have closed our Australian offices to show our support of the Fairfax journalists and to emphasise how important we believe independent editorial is for this country.”

The agency has offices in Melbourne and Sydney and works with clients such as Coles, Optus, AGL and Twitter.

Miranda Ward

Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.

topics Fairfax Media, strike, Thrive PR

Comments: 10 Add Comment

The Wasp 5 May 17

Dumb.

Anonymous 5 May 17

Good on them.

Cynic 5 May 17

Cheap stunt.

Robert 5 May 17

mmm, let’s close our doors for one day and pretend we’re in solidarity. Hopefully, the ‘PR’ from this will remind those pesky Fairfax journo’s to be more open to receiving our press releases in future as a result…

Liza 5 May 17

Pretty much. Plus it’s Friday, and no one is taking their calls. Give the staff a day off and they’ll think better of management. Wins all round.

Machiavelli 5 May 17

So…..they took Friday off.

So brave , so fearless.

hilarious 5 May 17

Utterly hilarious

Richelle 5 May 17

A full day of billable hours for their whole team would be a relatively significant amount given up to close the doors as a gesture of solidarity, Friday or not. I know it is hard for many people to take the actions of a PR agency as genuine but that doesn’t mean they aren’t. There is certainly a very cynical way to look at this and I don’t pretend to know the actual intentions of this agency’s management, but people get PR for many many things – including taking a stand – all the time … why not a PR agency? At least they are not simply tweeting a hash tag. (Yes I am in PR.)

Anony Mouse 6 May 17

Idiots.

Suspicious 6 May 17

What a PR stunt. Meanwhile other news outlets are still required to report the news but apparently their audiences and those journalists don’t matter to Thrive? Smacks of opportunism.

PR agency shuts doors in ‘solidarity’ with Fairfax Media journalists

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