MEAA CEO Paul Murphy.
The MEAA has condemned APN News and Media for abandoning regional media and communities.
APN announced it intends to sell its Australian Regional Media arm after the company reported a seven percent slide in profit.
The regional media division consists of twelve daily newspapers, sixty community and non-weekly publications and thirty regional news websites.
In a statement, the MEAA said "this announcement comes after management at APN has savagely slashed $40 million in costs from the regional media division over the past three years, resulting in the loss of jobs and a marked increase in work intensification for the staff that remain".
"As well as starving the business of resources, APN has repeatedly frustrated attempts to renew enterprise bargaining agreements".
MEAA CEO Paul Murphy said: “The APN publications that serve the people of regional Queensland and New South Wales are a vital source of local news and information. They have historic and crucial links to their communities, and are an avenue for local stories to be told and local voices to be heard. They provide an essential public service".
"But over several years, APN management has slashed away at these mastheads, diluting them of quality local content and starving them of the crucial resources needed to do their job. When your only strategy is to cut and cut, something has to give. In the end, it is the local communities that suffer”.