Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog » the Manchester Evening News

Major MEN changes ‘are designed to protect the business and its journalism for the future,’ says GMG Regional Media statement

Judith Townend — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:30:57 +0000

Following the news that 150 jobs – 78 of those journalists’ – will be cut in GMG Regional Media, this statement has been released from the group:

“MEN Media, publisher of the Manchester Evening News and weekly titles across Greater Manchester, has today briefed staff on a range of proposed changes to the business.

“The local and regional press is facing the worst conditions in living memory as the economic downturn exacerbates and accelerates longer-term structural changes in the behaviour of advertisers and readers.

“The viability of local and regional titles is under threat due to steeply falling revenues that we do not expect to return to previous levels even when economic conditions improve. Publishers therefore need to find a sustainable new model if they are to survive.

“The major changes announced at MEN Media today are designed to protect the business and its journalism for the future through a new model with significantly lower fixed costs.

“By far the largest cost within the business is salaries, and while we have examined every option short of job losses, it has become clear that it is impossible to bring stability to MEN Media without substantially reducing the number of people we employ. We expect approximately 150 positions to be made redundant across MEN Media.

“While we will seek volunteers for redundancy wherever possible, we anticipate that compulsory redundancies will be unavoidable. Those people affected will be offered significantly enhanced severance terms.

“MEN Media has reviewed all aspects of its business. In addition to salaries, we have targeted various other costs and looked at how we can
improve in areas such as advertising sales, working practices and editorial systems.

“The proposed changes announced today are summarised below:

Approximately 150 positions across all functions and disciplines to be made redundant within MEN Media. This includes 78 journalists across 23 titles.

One consolidated editorial team for the MEN and weeklies at Scott Place in Manchester, working across MEN Media’s various titles and websites.

All branch offices apart from Stockport will be closed in the coming months. Offices in Accrington, Ashton, Macclesfield, Oldham, Rochdale, Rossendale, Salford and Wilmslow will be closed.

Reporters will continue to work their patches, but no longer from a local office. There will be increased remote working to support this.

Investment in a new editorial system common to all titles, and training for all users. The new system has improved web and multimedia capabilities, and will enable journalists to work across MEN Media’s different outlets.

New layout and design for weekly titles.

Central section of common pages for the weeklies, drawn from the MEN’s leisure/entertainment content.

Greater sharing of content between the MEN and weekly titles.

A new house agreement to cover the new editorial department.

A revised pay schedule for journalists based on the current weeklies pay schedule. Journalists who are paid in excess of the schedule will have their pay ring-fenced and protected.

Fewer free copies of the MEN and weekly titles distributed.

Reduced pagination of the MEN.

Revamped advertising sales operation with greater focus on growing new business and selling multimedia solutions.

Better targeted advertising sales strategies, with improved use of customer data.”

Mark Dodson, chief executive of GMG Regional Media (parent company of MEN Media), said:

“MEN Media’s role is to produce great journalism for our readers, users and viewers in Greater Manchester. If we want to continue to be able to do this, we need to find a new, sustainable, lower-cost business model to support it. The economic viability of local and regional newspapers is under very real and imminent threat.

“The decision about job losses has been a very difficult one to make, and I deeply regret that it has been necessary. Nonetheless, I do believe this is the right decision for MEN Media’s future and for the majority of staff who will remain with the company.

“There is a successful future for local and regional journalism in the commercial sector, but we need to protect our businesses now to give ourselves the best chance of reaching it.

“This is a worrying time for everyone working in the local and regional press. Some argue that our industry has no future. I think this is completely wrong – people still want local and regional journalism, and advertisers want to reach those people.”

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Manchester Evening News mojo captures Ronaldo crash

Laura Oliver — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:29:01 +0000

The Manchester Evening News‘ decision to equip some journalists with Nokia N95 handsets has started to bear fruit, as mojo (mobile journalist) Nicola Dowling captured Manchester United footballer Cristiano Ronaldo’s recent fender bender.

Dowling’s mobile pics from the scene were supplemented with some video footage, which shows just how high quality the N95 cameras are:

According to a report on HoldtheFrontPage, Dowling’s footage and images were picked up by the Sun, BBC and Sky News.

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Are the new police crime maps any use for UK journalists? Some doubts raised

Judith Townend — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:38:01 +0000

Yesterday saw the launch of police crime maps in the UK. The Guardian reported:

“Crime maps detailing the number of offences committed in every neighbourhood have been published online by all 43 police forces in England and Wales, the Home Office said today.

“The colour-coded maps show the levels of burglary, car crime, robbery and other offences, and include charts showing whether crime is rising or falling.”

The maps were announced in July 2008, and had already provoked some discussion amongst journalists. This J.co.uk Editors’ Blog post all the way back in January 2008 looked at some existing regional newspaper mapping projects, including an LA Times homicide map and a murder map from the Manchester Evening News.

So are the new UK police maps all that new or useful for journalists? The Croydon Advertiser’s news editor, Jo Wadsworth, had this to say. She told Journalism.co.uk that they have had the maps in London for some months now.

“To be honest, my opinion of them hasn’t changed that much,” she said.

“The types of crime they cover are fairly restrictive, so they don’t give a particularly accurate reflection of true crime statistics in any one area. For instance, they don’t include sexual assaults, which would certainly be one type of crime I personally would be very interested in learning what the rates are in my local area.

“In terms of influencing and aiding local reporting, the Advertiser has run stories based on them, but they haven’t been that different to the standard crime figures stories which are a staple of local reporting, except in allowing us to drill down further than ward level,” she said.

“And I find it’s best to be wary of these types of stories in any case. For one thing, the police are well known for hailing any rises in crime as testament to their success in persuading people to report crime. And in terms of the micro-levels the maps drill down to, rises and falls are going to be fairly meaningless in any case.”

But, she added, ‘it’s good that the police are embracing this kind of technology, and transparency’.

“And hopefully in time it will be expanded to include more crimes – and more details for individual crimes,” she said.

Add your own thoughts below…

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Evening Leader plots UFO sightings with Dipity

Laura Oliver — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:44:57 +0000

Nice use of timeline builder Dipity by the Evening Leader: the paper has plotted videos and text reports of UFO sitings in the area onto a timeline, turned it into a widget and embedded it on its website.

What’s extra nice is that the Dipity widget lets readers look at the info as a timeline, map, flipbook or list. Using the third-party service helps the newspaper get extra mileage out of what are no doubt already popular online stories.

The feature has also been made ‘public’ through dipity’s site to help drive traffic back to the Evening Leader.

The tool has previously been used by the Manchester Evening News for its coverage of a proposed congestion charge for the city; and the Liverpool Daily Post to create a 24-hour snapshot of Liverpool as this year’s European Capital of Culture.

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