The cuts have sent a terrible message to readers: if the media doesn’t value journalism, why should you?
With two weeks to go, 2020 looks like a record year for journalism job losses. Up to 1000 newsroom jobs have disappeared in Australia — and about as many again in related media roles.
The result: widespread news deserts with about a third as many journalists reporting and editing news media as there were just 15 years ago. It looks like there are about 4000 now, compared to around 12,000 way back then.
In earlier big redundancy rounds, like 2008 and 2012, jobs were discarded through the thinning of journalist resources, closing ad-focussed supplements, and outsourcing and sharing copy and resources across mastheads (even with competitors).
