The founding editor of BuzzFeed Australia, Simon Crerar, has been laid off in what is the first of 11 local jobs to go as part of a global cost-cutting exercise.
G’day mates! Some personal news... Like so many talented folks around the world, I have been laid off by BuzzFeed. It has been the most exciting, fun, fulfilling job of my life. I’m sad, but also very thankful.
— Simon Crerar (@simoncrerar) February 13, 2019
“Sadly my role at BuzzFeed has been made redundant,” Crerar, a former News Corp staffer, told Guardian Australia on Wednesday.
“It has been the most exciting, fun and fulfilling job of my life. I’m enormously proud of everything my team has achieved over the past five years. While this is a sad moment for me and other affected colleagues in Australia and overseas, I’m confident BuzzFeed will survive and thrive in the future.”
Crerar hired the ABC Darwin reporter Mark di Stefano as breaking news reporter five years ago, promoting him to BuzzFeed Oz’s first political reporter based in Canberra in 2016.
The former Crikey editor Marni Cordell was hired in the same year as news editor, and the website has grown a small but effective reporting team, including hiring an Indigenous affairs reporter.
Crerar said Cordell and a “core crew of rockstars” would remain at BuzzFeed, but stopped short of confirming which members.
BuzzFeed was yet to announce the other 10 people being laid off but sources said Lane Sainty and Gina Rushton would remain. Sainty and Rushton were approached for comment.
Today it's officially 5 years since @BuzzFeedOz launched (timing huh?!). No matter what happens next, I'm so proud of the work we've done and thankful for the brilliant people I've gotten to work with over the years.
— Jenna Guillaume (@JennaGuillaume) January 31, 2019
The Australian arm of BuzzFeed was told in late January it had to cut 11 staff as a downsizing strategy targeted 200 of the digital publisher’s international workforce.
The BuzzFeed Oz Canberra news reporter, Alice Workman, who is being sued by MP Emma Husar, has taken redundancy, sources said. Workman has been approached for comment.
Husar had an early victory in her defamation case against BuzzFeed, with a judge ruling in December that an article written by Workman in July was capable of conveying that she was a “slut”.
Last month Workman tweeted about the redundancy letters received by every member of the news team.
BuzzFeed has 40 employees in Australia across editorial and commercial roles in Sydney and Canberra.
Meanwhile journalists at the Canberra Times and Nine Entertainment’s other regional and rural mastheads are nervously awaiting their fate following confirmation from new owners Nine that the business is on the market.
The Nine Entertainment CEO, Hugh Marks, indicated soon after the merger with Fairfax that the only assets he was interested in were national ones which could be monetised through national advertising packages. The Canberra Times, although based in the national capital, is a local paper, according to Nine.
Macquarie Capital has issued a sales memorandum to interested buyers, who are reportedly Allegro Funds Management, Anchorage Capital Partners, Seven West Media and News Corp.
The Australian Community Media division, formerly owned by Fairfax Media, is a collection of 160 regional publications and 130 community-based websites, with a reach of five million people per month.
Titles include the Newcastle Herald, the Examiner, the Border Mail, the Courier and Illawarra Mercury, the Land, Queensland Country Life, and Stock and Land.
