WITH so many cutbacks at newspapers and television companies in 2005, it is hard to recall a year with as many emergency union meetings and shock announcements.
There is no single explanation for it. The BBC's decision to remove 6000 posts over three years, including around 230 in Scotland, is being put down to maximising efficiency and new technology.
It led to the year's only national strike in May, and would have resulted in more if the management had not quickly come back with new proposals.
Another group playing the technology card is SMG, which last week announced that 60 jobs are to go at Scottish TV and Grampian.
Like BBC Scotland, it says it will need fewer staff when it moves to new state-of-the-art headquarters in Glasgow's Pacific Quay.
The cuts at national newspapers have had much to do with advertising revenues, with serious money now migrating onto the internet.
In the autumn, this led to a handful of high-profile redundancies at The Scotsman Publications, and Trinity Mirror recently announced over 70 jobs are to go in Scotland, decimating the Scottish arm of the Daily Mirror, as part of up to 770 cuts around the UK.
The announcements came despite the fact that both group's titles are making impressive profits.
Advertising woes are also the explanation for a three-year editorial budgets freeze at News International and a recruitment freeze at Newsquest (Herald and Times), which runs the Sunday Herald.
Meanwhile, the Telegraph Group stripped out about 300 posts in February as the Barclay brothers sought to squeeze greater profits from their 2004 purchase.
This cull included several posts in Scotland and has been followed by a relaunch and a number of new senior appointments.
And the Financial Times announced 30 voluntary redundancies, also in February, as part of a cost-cutting programme.
Paul Holleran, Scottish organiser for the National Union of Journalists, said: "I have worked in the media for 30 years and I have never known anything like it. Corporate greed has reached a new height of cynicism."
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