In her opening speech at yesterday’s Association of Online Publishers (AOP) Digital Publishing Summit, Trinity Mirror CEO Sly Bailey called on publishers to integrate digital plans into their businesses, without relying solely on the anticipated growth in digital revenues to bring future success.
Here’s her speech in full:
Tags: Association of Online Publishers, Sly Bailey, Trinity MirrorIn a follow up to Tuesday’s announcement that the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) will provide user profiles alongside stats on page impressions and unique users, Guy Lipscombe, managing director of Survey Interactive - the firm behind the on-site surveys being used for the research - explained how the ‘enhanced ABCe certificates’ would work at yesterday’s Regional Media Research Forum (RMRF) event:
Lipscombe was joined by Sally O’Donnell, strategic marketing manager for Trinity Mirror Regionals (TMR), who let us in on some key findings from Survey Interactive’s audience research with the group, which involved on-site questionnaires completed by 53,313 interviewees across TM’s 110 regional and national websites:
According to O’Donnell, further research will be conducted soon, as the group’s digital audience continues to grow. Sales staff training on how best to use the figures collected by the research will also be implemented - with particular attention paid to the difference between stats for ‘adults’ and ‘unique users’ to the sites and how behaviour differs amongst print and online consumers.
Tags: Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic, Guy Lipscombe, internet-users, Sally O'Donnell, Survey Interactive, Trinity MirrorTrinity Mirror’s Daily Post Wales has launched a Welsh news website.
DailyPostCymraeg.co.uk, which went live today, will focus on North Wales, but also feature main UK news headlines, a release from the publisher said.
The site includes forums, blogs and video content aimed at a Welsh-speaking audience, and will be published alongside the Daily Post’s English-language site.
Tags: Daily Post, DailyPostCymraeg.co.uk, WalesAccording to the Guardian, all 300 editorial staff at Trinity Mirror’s Midlands titles have been made redundant and are being asked to reapply for new roles.
The mass restructuring of editorial staff will pave the way for the integration of multimedia, production and news desks across Trinity’s titles in the region.
A central multimedia desk will be created to take control of editorial content for the Birmingham Mail, Birmingham Post and Sunday Mercury with particular responsibility for online platforms.
A similar hub will be developed to produce content for its Coventry-based titles, while a regional production unit will oversee the multimedia desks’ work.
In addition a new work process of ‘content creation, multimedia desk, page finishing’ will be implemented.
Yesterday Trinity Mirror said the changes would require ’substantially fewer journalists’ and the publisher has entered into a consultation process with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).
“Whatever the company may claim, you simply can’t take dozens of journalists out of your local operations and continue to report news to the same standard. Bosses at the company are sacrificing quality journalism to appease the short-term whims of the financial markets,” said Jeremy Dear, NUJ general secretary, in response to yesterday’s announcement.
Tags: Birmingham Mail, Birmingham Post, Coventry, management changes, National Union, Sunday Mercury, Trinity MirrorTrinity Mirror has announced a host of changes to the senior management of its Midlands newspaper titles.
Steve Dyson, who will remain in his post as editor of the Birmingham Mail, is to become additionally responsible for the Sunday Mercury.
He will also oversee the introduction of new centralised multimedia, newsroom and production operations to the region.
Marc Reeves, editor of the Birmingham Post, will take on new duties for the online development of Trinity’s titles in the area.
Dave Brookes, current editor of the Sunday Mercury, has been named as editor of the Coventry Telegraph and will take up the role in January replacing Alan Kirby, who will retire at Christmas.
Kirby and Brookes will remain as editor of their existing titles while the new processes are implemented.
Completing the changes Tony Lennox, editorial director of Midlands Weekly Media, has been appointed to the new role of business development editor for the Midlands.
Tags: Alan Kirby, Birmingham Mail, Coventry Telegraph, Dave Brookes, Management Change, Marc Reeves, Midlands Weekly Media, online development, Steve Dyson, Sunday Mercury, the Birmingham Post, Tony Lennox, Trinity MirrorTrinity Mirror is to close or ’seek a sale’ for its titles in Northampton and Long Eaton.
The decision, which was made because of ‘difficult trading conditions’ and following a review of Trinity’s Midlands operations, will affect seven titles in total:
The publisher will enter a consultation with staff at the titles today, it said in a press release.
The announcement is part of wider changes to Trinity’s titles in the Midlands with plans for centralised multimedia and production desks set to result in more job losses for journalists.
Tags: Corby Herald, Kettering Herald, Northampton, Trinity MirrorThe Hub and Spoke laying out may be in vogue for the majority of those adapting to an integrated newsroom but you’d be hard pressed to call Trinity Mirror’s Liverpool nerve centre anything other than an archipelago.
Alison Gow, deputy editor of Liverpool Daily Post, gave Journalism.co.uk a quick tour and explained how a partially rather than fully integrated newsroom for Liverpool’s Daily Post and Echo newspapers and a portfolio of weeklies served them best.
Similar to other large cities in the UK, Liverpool’s morning paper, the Liverpool Daily Post (typically 15,000 copies circulated per day) and the evening Echo (109,000) serve vastly different markets. To account for this the newsroom has integrated but also demarked areas where each paper’s interest is best served by not mixing processes.
The newsdesks of the Post & Echo had previously been fully integrated but the unsuccessful experiment lasted only 18 months and end in 2001, as it didn’t fully serve the needs each paper had and met with opposition from staff who were resistant to working on the other title.
“I suspect the industry is a lot more broad-minded now as we work across print, internet, TV and radio,” Gow told Journalism.co.uk.
COPY
The dailies and weekly newspapers have adapted and refined a partially integrated newsroom where the two main papers share news copy, but keep diary and features separate.
“A government minister in town would tend to be interviewed by a Post reporter,” Gow told Journalism.co.uk. “That copy would be sent by the Post newsdesk to the Echo newsdesk to be rewritten and subbed down. Echo page leads are around 350, Post 600 plus.
“The Post & Echo share a court reporter but the very distinct target audiences of both papers means what makes a splash in the Echo, gangster trials for example, may struggle to make a page lead in the Post.
“Inquests would be covered by one reporter whose copy would be shared between both papers.
“An exception would be Liverpool council meetings - mostly covered by the council reporters from both papers as it’s a contact-building exercise as much as anything.”
The Echo can also publish stories from the weeklies the day the papers are published, Gow added, as the assistant news editor has access to their content queues.
“It’s a co-operative system and involves the newsdesks, picturedesk and multimedia desks talking to each other. That’s why the command desk is so important,” added Gow.
STAFF
At the centre of the archipelago – the big island – is the command desk where Post and Echo news editors and their deputies sit along with a picture editor who works across both publications and the Echo design editor.
Reporters are title specific, as are the features and sports teams, and both papers have separate features and sports editors and deputy editors, Arts editors and motoring editors.
A multimedia head, working across both titles, also sits on the command desk. As on the web, Gow says, the two publications have ‘more fluid identities’.
Each department desks now has embedded digital journalist. Under the old system ‘they just used to sit in the corner away from everyone else’ said Gow. Now they espouse the need for web content and ensure the website remains an area of focus for each department on each title now that they break 99 per cent of their stories online.
Video is a separate entity altogether – one video journalist is responsible for managing libraries, cutting pieces and training newsroom staff and reporters in video-journalism.
She has trained eight other staff so far, giving them a week’s hands-on training so that they can manage handicams and cut footage. They aim for a new web video each day.
SUBBING
A pool of eight subs work across the Echo, the England and Welsh Daily Posts, Huddersfield Examiner, the Chester Chronicle, the Merseyside and North Wales weekly papers on a rota basis.
There are also title-specific staff who work primarily for each paper – ‘champions’ of each brand, adds Gow.
This approach has shifted subs from thinking they work for a single publication, she said, to a ‘hive-mind’ where they work across several titles.
Tags: Alison Gow, Echo, Journalism.co.uk, Liverpool, Liverpool council, Liverpool's Daily, Liverpool's Daily Post, sports editors, sports teams, Trinity Mirror, United Kingdom, web content, web video
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