Today the European Federation of Journalists said that decisions in Britain and Spain to cut thousands of media jobs will have a devastating impact on quality of journalism.

This week the BBC, world's leading public broadcaster, announced that almost 1000 jobs would go at its world service network and online operations. In Madrid, the PRISA company, owner of one of Spain's major dailies El Paìs and operating in twenty-two countries worldwide, said they were slashing 2500 jobs across the group.

"This is devastating news for quality journalism", said EFJ President Arne König. "It shows that in both public and private sectors, the cutting of jobs in European journalism is continuing with inevitable consequences on pluralism, press freedom and democracy".

The EFJ said it will fully support its affiliates, the NUJ in Britain, and the CCOO, FeSP and FAPE in Spain who have denounced the cuts. The EFJ fears that these latest cut backs will encourage further reductions in the scope and content of journalism in other countries.

"These cuts are in reaction to a mix of political and corporate objectives, but they do nothing other than reinforce the depth of the media crisis in Europe", said König. "We must have a change in direction with action at all levels, including where appropriate from the state or investment in journalism as a public good."

The NUJ in Britain said that by cutting the World Service "the government will cut British influence in the rest of the world, and cuts will also be deeply damaging for objective quality news services around the globe". The BBC is also a source of information for many other media organisations around the world, says the EFJ.

The Spanish affiliate of the EFJ, the FeSP said in a statement that "PRISA is a leader in (magic) formulas for lay-offs and redundancies or in throwing to their employees the consequences of their megalomaniac procedures, which the management always avoids for themselves". FSC-CCOO also recalls that last December the PRISA group closed down the Spanish language channel CNN+ and that many redundancies are already taking place at the financial paper 5 Dias.

Links:
-          http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=1893
-          http://noticias.terra.com.ar/sociedad/ccoo-lamenta-el-recorte-de-plantilla-anunciado-por-el-grupo-prisa,100611b3e3ebd210VgnVCM4000009bf154d0RCRD.html 

Contacts:
Jeremy Dear, NUJ General Secretary: JeremyD@nuj.org.uk
Paco Audije, CC.OO. and member of IFJ Executive Committee: paudije@periodistas-es.org

The EFJ represents over 260,000 journalists in 30 countries.
For more information contact the EFJ at +32 2 235.2200