The Wire

Fairfax’s slashing of 1900 jobs in the company’s newsrooms and printing facilities has caused some deep soul-searching in the journalism profession over the last couple of days. Some of that self-reflection hasn’t been without humour, though. The future for some of the laid-off workers might be in ‘tracksuit’ journalism – that is, to join the growing breed of journalists who work from home, often for niche online publications. However, the ‘tracksuit’ journalism model usually can’t afford to cross-subsidise investigative reporting, and niche publications are highly unlikely to absorb all the journalists that are forced out by large media organisations.