The man who made sure senior printers at News Corp gained a portable qualification to secure their futures should jobs there evaporate, has himself become a victim of the latest round of cuts at the media giant.

As general manager of print production, Marcus Hooke brought a manufacturing mindset from toothpaste-maker Colgate Palmolive, where he had been part of the team which merged Campbell’s products into the business. At News Corp Australia for almost 17 years, he also progressively took responsibility for newspaper delivery logistics, and for the company’s 100-or-so leased and owned properties. A metallurgist, he had previously managed Intec’s pilot copper plant.

In 2014, he told an ASEAN Newspaper Printers conference in Manila how News had been able to recruit leaders by helping them gain transferrable skills, “so they no longer felt trapped”.

During his career with News, he oversaw numerous projects including extensive mailroom modernisations, a press update – with used machinery – at Mile End in Adelaide, the modernisation and later closure of its Murarrie (Brisbane) print site, and the construction of a new site (more pre-loved machinery) in Truganina (Melbourne) to replace the much larger Westgate Park printery, which is now to become a data centre. Former APN sites including those in Warwick, Beaudesert and Rockhampton, Queensland were either closed or sold, while another former APN site, the hybrid manroland-equipped Yandina centre has become one of the stars of the current network, taking on what remained of Murarrie’s production in addition to its own and that of other APN locations.

As for who will take on Hooke’s responsibilities, News had not responded to a GXpress inquiry at the time of posting this report.

Among other senior executives affected by a recent stream of redundancies is former national executive editor Peter Blunden who last week was awarded the medal of the Order of Australia (AM) in the King’s Birthday honours, recognising a 48-year career with News in journalism and news media. According to reports he “has had a request to have his responsibilities reduced to three days a week approved”.

Peter Coleman

Pictured: Marcus Hooke (left) with Geoff Booth, one of four senior managers who left in 2017 in what executive chairman Michael Miller called “a changing of the guard” (GXpress photo)