Kirk slams News's strike reporting
Neil Shoebridge
Fairfax Media chief executive David Kirk has attacked arch−rival News Ltd's coverage of the strike by Fairfax's capital−city newspaper journalists, accusing it of inaccurate reporting and "purposeful misrepresentations".
"News Ltd tried to take advantage of events here for its commercial advantage," Mr Kirk said. "Unlike us, it is prepared to use its newspapers to push its own commercial ends."
He said he contacted News Ltd executives on Friday morning last week − the day after Fairfax journalists started a three−day strike − but would not say if he talked to News Ltd chairman and CEO John Hartigan.
Mr Hartigan said he rejected Mr Kirk's criticism "absolutely". "It gives us no pleasure that 550 people are about to be sacked by Fairfax," he said.
"Fairfax's decision is a big story, as it would be when any Australian company decides to lay off such a large number of people. The Fairfax story warranted extensive coverage."
Asked how coverage of the strike would affect the working relationship between Fairfax (the publisher of The Australian Financial Review) and News Ltd on industry issues and the industry marketing group The Newspaper Works, Mr Kirk said "it wouldn't help".
Mr Kirk said he was not surprised by News Ltd's reporting of the Fairfax strike, which ended when the company put forward a revised version of an enterprise bargaining agreement for editorial staff. "Their coverage was disappointing and inappropriate, but not surprising," he said. "It's not unusual for some companies to use such events for their own commercial gains."
The revised agreement, which will be put to a vote of Fairfax editorial staff, included pay rises of between 11 per cent and 12.25 per cent over three years and would take effect from September 1.
Last month Fairfax deputy chief executive Brian McCarthy said wages in the company's Australian publishing and printing division (which is Fairfax's largest division) were expected to rise 3 per cent during the 2009 financial year.
Yesterday Mr Kirk said the new pay agreement would not change that forecast and the revisions made over the weekend to convince striking staff to return to work would "not make a material difference to costs".
The revised agreement would not affect the restructuring program Fairfax announced on August 26, including the retrenchment of 550 staff from its New Zealand publishing division, Sydney and Melbourne metropolitan newspapers, and head office.
The retrenchments would cost Fairfax $50 million in redundancy and associated costs and generate an annual saving of $50 million, or 5.3 per cent of the company's 2007−08 wages bill of $952 million.
"The restructuring was put in place with assumptions about the enterprise bargaining agreement outcome," Mr Kirk said.
He said he was not expecting more industrial action over the plan to remove about 300 staff from The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun−Herald, The Age and The Sunday Age. Most of the job cuts would take place in editorial production departments.