After announcing its initial plan to cut 16 full-time positions from the newspaper last month — including all subeditors, one journalist, most photographers, administration and management roles — the company announced its revised plan to staff yesterday following a three-week consultation period.

In total, 71 full-time equivalent positions will be made redundant across the company’s regional Victorian mastheads, including The Border Mail, The Courier in Ballarat and the Bendigo Advertiser.

Jobs to go at The Standard are the general manager’s position, 12 editorial roles and two administrative staff.

In the editorial department, all sub-editors will be made redundant — the equivalent of 7.3 full-time jobs — plus 2.2 photographers and 2.5 journalists.

John Angilley, director of Fairfax’s rural arm Australian Community Media, said the decision was aimed at “refreshing and revitalising” all 13 mastheads serving local communities across Victoria.

“We are committed to our Victorian mastheads and the restructure will make them sustainable into the foreseeable future,” Mr Angilley said.

“We are pleased that our communities care about our journalism as much as we do. 

“That support coupled with our changes will ensure our newspapers and websites remain strong local voices and are as vibrant, locally-focused and as useful as our readers want them to be.

“Local news and sales capability will remain well resourced. 

“We are upgrading our Victorian newsrooms by adopting more efficient ways of working, new systems and quality checking processes, digital-first editorial production practices, and a vastly better local sales approach.” 

South West Coast MP Denis Napthine said he was bitterly disappointed to hear of “significant” job cuts across Victoria, particularly at The Standard. He said he was concerned The Standard would have less capacity to be a major regional newspaper. 

“The management of Fairfax has failed to recognise The Standard is not just a Warrnambool paper, it’s a south-west paper,” he said. 

“I’m concerned there will be less opportunity for The Standard to cover significant events in places like Portland, Heywood, Hamilton and Camperdown.”

Warrnambool City Council chief executive Bruce Anson said he was saddened by the job losses at The Standard.

“I’m extremely disappointed, both for the individuals and for the newspaper,” Mr Anson said. 

“From the city’s point of view, The Standard provides a fundamental role providing communication out to the community ... from local sport to local news.

“They have a long history of being pretty fair and pretty critical when they need to be.”

Mr Anson said The Standard had a “proud history” and he hoped that could continue after the cuts.