News Corp cuts journalism jobs, blames 'advertising softness'

Media industry giant News Corporation has decided to cut around 55 journalism jobs in all its newspapers published across Australia.

The initiative by the global media associations to nullify the effect of soft advertising market on the industry has prompted the news ace to take such a tough decision. News Corp (NASDAQ: FOXA) is cutting jobs from The Australian, the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, the Sunday Telegraph and other newspapers published across the nation.

The staff members were informed about this on Tuesday morning. According to the sources, the job cuts were the result of company’s deteriorating financial condition. The first-quarter reports of News Corp indicated a fall of 11 percent to US$1.3 billion (approx. AU$1.8 billion).

NewsCorp chief executive Robert Thomson has blamed “advertising softness” in the country and dropping currency value as the main causes of its declining news revenue. The chief financial officer Bedi Singh said that the company was reviewing its business in Australia. “At News Corp Australia, advertising revenues for the quarter declined 30 percent or 11 percent in local currency, as the marketplace was weaker than the prior-year quarter,” Singh claimed at the results briefing.

“We again saw softness in several categories including retail, employment, finance and auto, with the real estate category showing modest year-over-year growth. We’re actively examining the cost structure at News Australia and looking for additional operating efficiencies in the near term.”

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance media director Katelin McInerney criticised the decision of News Corp of cutting journalism jobs. She said that the journalists already work very to cater to high journalism requirements and help people to know what they need to. The job losses are a short-sighted response that questions the ability of the news giant to deliver news, information and entertainment to its audiences.

Recently, SBS has run a satirical story on News Corp’s decision to cut jobs, which has put it under fire from other media outlets. The spoof story stated that the ones who lost jobs from the news giant organisation would now be able to work as “actual journalists.”

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