Newspapers in Australia that are still profitable are “being butchered,” Michael Gawenda, former editor-in-chief of The Age and director of Melbourne University's Centre for Advanced Journalism, stated in opinion piece, out Tuesday.

“The editorial cuts announced by Fairfax Media recently, in response to a dramatic fall in advertising revenue, were chilling. A failure of imagination and commitment, a result of a lack of experience and knowledge and love of newspapers, has taken Fairfax, owner of The Age, down the slash and burn path, a path tried by newspapers in other places that has led to even more rapid declines in circulation and readership and, ultimately, profitability,” Gawenda stated.

Gawenda's views will be given in a lecture at the university Tuesday evening, The Age reported.

“Imagine Melbourne without The Age and the Herald Sun or Sydney without The Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph. Imagine Australia without The Australian. If you can imagine such a future, that's in part because of our failure to produce newspapers that attract the sort of fierce and life-long loyalty they once attracted,” Gawenda wrote for lecture, according to The Age.

Newspapers must build a “community of readers,” Gawenda stated. “Newspapers need to be in the business of news, but they need to report news that only a newspaper can do well.”