ABC cuts begin to bite, fly in fly out newsroom?
Based on an article by Amanda Meade
ABC Bosses forced to plead for staff to fill gaps in the news roster.
The ABC building in Sydney. Staff say there’s no fat left to cut. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian
Sydney newsroom has put out an urgent call to all state news directors for staff who can fly in to fill “significant gaps in the production roster”. This is on top of regional staff who have already arrived to fatten up Sydney’s skeleton staff.
Chiefs of staff, news gathering producers and line-up producers are all needed to put out the 7pm TV news bulletin between 30 August and 28 September.
The ABC can't afford to lose eight experienced hands from one newsroom in one fell swoop. The crisis comes after they've announced 22 jobs in the ABC’s newsrooms across the country were to be made redundant. Eight of these were in Sydney.
They've found themselves without enough journalists to put out those pesky traditional services such as TV and radio bulletins.
This is what ABC members and staff have been warning about when they’ve said there is no ‘fat’ left to cut – this is clear evidence that the cuts to the ABC in the latest budget go far further than ‘driving efficiencies’ – they are now impacting directly on the coverage and services the ABC is bound by its charter to provide to all Australians.
Sydney newsroom has put out an urgent call to all state news directors for staff who can fly in to fill “significant gaps in the production roster”. This is on top of regional staff who have already arrived to fatten up Sydney’s skeleton staff.
Chiefs of staff, news gathering producers and line-up producers are all needed to put out the 7pm TV news bulletin between 30 August and 28 September.
The ABC can't afford to lose eight experienced hands from one newsroom in one fell swoop. The crisis comes after they've announced 22 jobs in the ABC’s newsrooms across the country were to be made redundant. Eight of these were in Sydney.
They've found themselves without enough journalists to put out those pesky traditional services such as TV and radio bulletins.
This is what ABC members and staff have been warning about when they’ve said there is no ‘fat’ left to cut – this is clear evidence that the cuts to the ABC in the latest budget go far further than ‘driving efficiencies’ – they are now impacting directly on the coverage and services the ABC is bound by its charter to provide to all Australians.
And there's more, redundancy news, the ABC’s online shop will close by the end of the year, as will the ABC Centres which operate in some book shops, resulting in another 16 jobs lost.
ABC DVDs, music, books, toys and other merchandise will still be available through other retailers.
Now there's the big one, customer service:- The ABC has also decided to replace its switchboard operators with a voice-activated computer(robots) and a team of three human “audience triage agents”, according to proposals.
So from then ABC audience members are going to miss calling up and having a chat to a person who would log their calls in an audience feedback book.
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