Australian Fairfax Media laying off journalists in New Zealand

Jun 30, 2008, 9:05 GMT

Wellington - Australia's Fairfax Media announced Monday that it was preparing to lay off about 40 sub-editors from the 190 it employs on nine daily newspapers in New Zealand.

It said centralized 'hubs' of sub-editors would handle pages of world and business news and feature articles for the five morning and four evening papers, including the Dominion Post in the capital city Wellington and The Press, which is published in the main South Island city, Christchurch.

'Feature pages and world and business pages require an expertise that is not always available at individual newspapers and, through this proposal, we can ensure that all our readers will have the same consistent standard of editing excellence,' executive editor Paul Thompson said in a statement.

He said pages of local and sports news would remain the responsibility of editors and sub-editors on the individual papers.

The company warned that more cuts could follow with additional generic non-news pages such as TV listings and the weather undertaken by providers for the whole group, and merging the sub-editors of its two Sunday papers.

It was the latest retrenchment in New Zealand's media world. Earlier this month, the national news agency, New Zealand Press Association, announced it was laying off seven of its 55 journalists and last year Television New Zealand cut nearly 60 news and current affairs jobs.

APN New Zealand, which publishes the New Zealand Herald, the country's largest daily, cut 70 sub-editors and outsourced work to a centralized agency.