Fairfax cuts 12 jobs in community news
Fairfax is restruturing its community newsrooms to focus on Neighbourly.
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Hawke’s Bay
Fairfax Media NZ is cutting 12 jobs in its latest restructure, this time focused on its community newspaper division.
Staff were briefed on the changes today, tipped to "better serve our local communities."
Spokeswoman Emma Carter says "this proposal involves streamlining the way we produce community newspapers and introducing new ways of working across our community titles.
"It follows the successful introduction of modern newsroom practices at our metropolitan and regional mastheads."
It is unclear which staff members will be affected but regional newspaper editors were made redundant last year in favour of regional news directors, so it's tempting to draw parallels between the two restructures.
Fairfax has 59 community titles nationwide, with 12 based in Auckland. The editor of Auckland City Harbour News, East & Bays Courier and Central Leader Catherine Reiss resigned last month and is yet to be formally replaced.
Ms Carter says restructured community newsrooms will be led by newly appointed news directors.
They will focus on pushing local news content on social media platform Neighbourly, in which Fairfax owns a 45% stake.
“We have a dominant player in Neighbourly as seen by the massive increase in membership in a short time. We need to build that asset,” Ms Carter says.
She says the restructuring will streamline Fairfax's community newspaper production.
Affected staff are being consulted on the changes.
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Chelsea Armitage
Fri, 22 Apr 2016
Fri, 22 Apr 2016
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Fairfax cuts 12 jobs in community news
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