Some of News Corp’s most experienced journalists have been made redundant amid significant cuts to the national reporting team, and the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph newspapers.
The national health reporter Sue Dunlevy, who has clocked up 36 years with the company, is among the redundancies. So too are the former Europe correspondent Charles Miranda, the national investigations editor Ben Butler and investigative reporter Natalie O’Brien.
The national reporting team was the brainchild of powerful Victorian executive Peter Blunden and was tasked with generating original reporting and investigations to be published across the group in a bid to grow digital subscriptions.
“It’s important that there’s a very strong bridge between our national network of journalism,” Blunden earlier told News Corp of the reporting team’s role. “Premium journalism done once, done better and shared across our company.”
But since Blunden moved to a part-time advisory role under a major restructure unveiled in May the unit has been “decimated”, sources said.
There have also been cuts across the company, to middle management and editorial.
Staff whose roles have been made redundant include the national weekend political editor for News Corp, James Campbell, and the Daily Telegraph’s entertainment reporter Mikaela Wilkes, senior reporter Clarissa Bye and reporter Anton Rose.
Some redundancies were voluntary and others forced. More redundancies are expected at The Australian newspaper, sources say.
The national reporting team – also known as “network” – has been overseen by the Daily Telegraph editor, Ben English, since the restructure.
A former News Corp editor, Sarah Blake, has rejoined the company to take up the position of national editor at the unit after longtime editor Lillian Saleh was moved into a different role.
A spokesperson for News Corp confirmed the unit is still in operation despite the cuts.
“All of the affected employees whose previous roles are redundant are being considered for redeployment,” the spokesperson said.
Murdoch’s Australian arm has been quietly slashing tens of millions of dollars in costs to counter a slow advertising market and the loss of revenue from Meta deals.
Facebook and Instagram’s parent company announced it would stop paying Australian publishers for news when media bargaining deals run out this year.
Unlike Nine Entertainment, which announced job cuts of up to 200, News has not confirmed how many jobs will be made redundant.
The executive chair of News Corp Australia, Michael Miller, said only that a number of roles would change and “some impacted people will regrettably leave our business”.
The restructure saw Murdoch’s Australian media empire reorganised into mastheads which are free, tabloids which are subscription-based and so-called prestige titles The Australian newspaper and Vogue magazine.
The state-based organisation was dismantled and power centralised along national lines, abolishing the role of several senior editorial executives.
The first casualties were Lisa Muxworthy, the editor-in-chief of news.com.au, and John McGourty, the group director of the Editorial Innovation Centre and a former deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph and Michael Wilkins, managing director of the sport network.
This article was amended on 24 July to remove the name of Oliver Murray whom we mistakenly said had left the company.
