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The New Daily cuts jobs as Industry Super finalises sale
Industry Super-backed news publication The New Daily is shedding staff as its owner gets ready to offload the publication, with a deal expected to be finalised by year’s end.
The New Daily’s owner, Industry Super Holdings – the superannuation sector’s collectively held investment arm – put the publication on the market earlier this year, saying the loss-making publication was finding it harder to keep itself afloat.
Solstice Media, which publishes The New Daily at present through its subsidiary Motion Publishing, is in pole position to buy the publication, which has been steadily cutting staff.
Eight positions have been made redundant, while a handful of staff will be offered new roles, Motion managing director Paul Hamra said. Several others have left the organisation recently.
The New Daily’s owner, Industry Super, wants to sell it.Credit:
“We want to keep The New Daily going, as we have set it up 10 years ago,” Hamra said. “We’ve got a really large audience, and we want to continue to serve that large audience … We need to rely on integrating it into the Solstice company so that we can offset some of the costs within our existing operations. We have a significant audience that’s still very attractive to advertisers.”
The brainchild of then-Industry Super chair Garry Weaven, The New Daily was set up in 2013 by six industry superannuation funds and run by former Age and Herald Sun editor Bruce Guthrie. It has about 500,000 subscribers, with many of those members of industry funds, including Australian Super and Cbus.
Over time, the fund established a five-year plan to make The New Daily self-sufficient, with advertising revenue and money from tech giants Google and Meta becoming its main sources of income.
However, after weak display advertising market conditions, which have ravaged the industry, and the end of a commercial deal that Solstice Media had with Meta, Industry Super Holdings had considered it would be unable to break even.
“In light of changing market conditions and funding models in the sector, including the move by Meta to cease payments for news from media companies, Industry Super Holdings has made the decision to sell The New Daily,” an Industry Super spokeswoman said.
“The New Daily has continued to provide value for industry super funds throughout Industry Super Holdings’ ownership and has been an important and cost-effective avenue to communicate to members.”
Guthrie said it was a disappointing day for independent media, and he called on the federal government to support Australian journalism by at the very least replacing the value of the Meta deal. He added that taxpayer assistance should be skewed towards smaller players.
“We need the government to weigh in to not just support New Daily but to support journalism,” Guthrie said. “Sites are falling everywhere – old and new ones. We’re going to need some form of assistance, whether it’s philanthropic or government. Democracy does not survive without journalism.”
Guthrie said Solstice may also find it easier to ask for donations and financial assistance from philanthropists, who in the past were reluctant to provide funding given the site was being backed by wealthy industry super funds.
Online news publications grew amid a healthy digital advertising sector, but this has since collapsed in Australia. A weak advertising market for traditional media overall is a key reason behind mass job cuts at News Corp and Nine, the owner of this masthead. It was also the central reason behind Pedestrian Group (part of Nine) shuttering its local outposts for titles including VICE, Gizmodo and Refinery29.
With Calum Jaspan
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