“Like Being Shot in the Face” or “I’m Glad I’m Out”: Journalists’ Experiences of Job Loss in the Australian Media Industry 2012–2014

ABSTRACT

The Australian news media industry has recently experienced a dramatic contraction, resulting in the loss of an estimated 3000 journalism positions since 2011. But what does the process of being laid off (more commonly understood as “redundancy” in Australia) actually mean for those affected? Drawing on a survey of more than 200 journalists who left what were mostly long-term jobs in large newsrooms between 2012 and 2014, this paper examines how respondents conceptualised their redundancy experiences in response to an open-ended question that was part of a 2014 survey. As well as assessing the often complex and sometimes visceral responses in terms of whether they were positive, mixed or negative, the paper discusses a range of themes to emerge, and notes discrepancies that relate to whether the redundancies were voluntary or forced, and by age and gender, and to some extent, current work status. It also finds that while overall the responses to redundancy skew more negative than positive, an substantial majority of those surveyed believe their well-being has improved since leaving their jobs.

KEYWORDS:

• Journalism
• journalism redundancies
• layoffs
• job loss
• management
• emotions
• news industry
• precarious work

Acknowlegements

We acknowledge the assistance of Professor Tim Marjoribanks, Professor Penny O’Donnell and Dr Merryn Sherwood, members of the New Beats research team.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received funding from the Australian Research Council for Linkage Project 140100341 to conduct the research on which this article is based.