THE Age newspaper has axed some of its most senior staff in a massive cost-cutting purge.
Voluntary redundancy payouts have been granted to 36 editorial staff most of them long-serving reporters.
On Wednesday, when successful redundancy applicants were notified, a thinly veiled swipe was taken at management in the newspaper's daily news conference.
On the paper's news list, under a planned obituary for former editor Michael Davie, it said: "Ironically, his passing is marked on the same day some 36 of Age staff are officially told they are no longer wanted."
The Age's editor-in-chief, Andrew Jaspan, is understood to have been furious. Insiders said the job cuts would decimate the Spencer St newspaper.
"We lose a lot of experience and a lot of quality," one journalist said.
"For the people who are left, you're still trying to fill the same amount of space every day with fewer people to do it."
The company rejected applications from 17 staffers at the paper, many of whom are irate at missing out on a golden handshake.
Some journalists who had been at the paper for more than 25 years are understood to have been paid more than $250,000 to leave.
The Age's publisher, John Fairfax Holdings, announced in October that 55 editorial positions would be cut from The Age and stablemates The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald.
Fairfax said the job cuts represented a 6-7.5 per cent cut in editorial staff at the newspapers.
The Age's spokesman, Nigel Henham, declined to comment, saying the redundancies were an internal matter.
The payouts follow a $4.5 million departure package for former Fairfax chief executive Fred Hilmer, and a $1.5 million payment to incoming CEO David Kirk.
Fairfax shares closed 6c higher yesterday at $3.96.
