Yesterday, the senior management of the Fairfax newspaper group filed a story in a language their best editors would never publish: the language of gobbledegook.

Under a joint by-line, David Kirk (CEO) and Brian McCarthy (Deputy CEO) regaled readers with a frenetic tale of “productivity and performance” designed to “comprehensively restructure and reposition the business” by “streamlining reporting lines” in order to “increase business unit accountability and control of support services” and “focus corporate on high-value or longer-term activities and governance”.

They promised “a period of centralisation of business support services” that would “improve responsiveness and better align resources with needs”.

They committed to a “business improvement initiative” led by an “Executive Leadership Team” who would “take a more pro-active role in determining the agenda and providing leadership and decision”, leading to “important group-wide activities”.

They pledged to “initiate a process for discussion with each person involved in this restructure to discuss reassignment or redundancy”.

At no point in their bureaucratic missive did the Fairfax CEO and Deputy CEO unveil their vision for the modern newspaper, address or acknowledge the enormous challenges confronting news media, or even hint at how the removal of 550 people, including 165 editorial staff, could maintain quality — the idea of improving editorial quality is clearly no longer an issue — other than to note that “this initiative has been carefully constructed by the publishers with full regard for the integrity of their mastheads”.

At no point in their shareholder-friendly death notice did the men-in-the-corner-office even pretend that their role was anything but funereal (with a corporate touch).

And at no point in their rambling, officious, jargon-riddled blamange of corporate cliches did the Fairfax CEO and Deputy CEO mention the word that was once most associated with their company.

Journalism.