Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » job cuts

NUJ invites News International journalists to meeting

Rachel McAthy — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:59:12 +0000

The National Union of Journalists is due to hold a meeting tomorrow (Wednesday, 2 November) to discuss the recently announced cuts to editorial within the Times and Sunday Times, which is open to member and non-member freelance, casual and staff journalists at the publisher’s titles.

Last month the Times announced it was to cut around 100 staff from the newspapers’ editorial workforce, with the bulk of those said to be to casual staff. It was also confirmed that 20 compulsory redundancies are due to be made from full-time staff at the Sunday Times, which is cutting 30 per cent of its casual editorial workforce.

Following this announcement the NUJ set up a meeting, which is open to any staff who wish to seek advice. It will be held from 1 to 3pm at the Captain Kidd pub, 108 Wapping High Street, E1W 2NE. The union has also invited representatives of the company’s in-house union NISA to attend if interested in working with the NUJ.Similar Posts:

Voluntary redundancies as Future Publishing focuses on digital

Andy Halls — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:31:31 +0000

Magazine publisher Future PLC is to cut around 100 jobs based in the UK and worldwide – in a move favouring digital over print.

The job losses are expected due to “restructuring” in the company, following a 5 per cent circulation revenue fall in the past nine months.

In a statement, it said the websites were performing well and the main problems were in America.

In an email to staff, Future Publishing UK CEO, Mark Wood, said restructure would be likely to result in about 10 per cent of the firm’s workforce being made redundant. This however, would mostly be through voluntary redundancies.

The company – which publishes around 80 magazines and has 1,000 staff in Bath – said advertising revenue from its websites has offset a decline in print-related income.

The business is executing its operational review of geography and function, to accelerate the move of the US business to one that is a primarily digital business model, simultaneously reducing volatility associated with print data flows, and to reorganise the UK business, re-calibrating it to ensure faster adaptation to digital and more efficient execution of print.

The benefit of these steps will be to improve efficiency, reduce headcount, reduce property requirements, and help accelerate the most promising areas of digital product development.

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NUJ: Journalists demand ‘immediate talks’ as 22 jobs face cut at Media Wales

Rachel McAthy — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 08:29:53 +0000

The National Union of Journalists claims reporters at Media Wales are demanding “immediate talks” with management following plans to cut 22 jobs at the publisher.

According to the union, under the proposals 10 district office staff, eight production journalists and four members of the sports staff would be made redundant. Media Wales, part of the Trinity Mirror group, publishes titles including the Western Mail, South Wales Echo and the Wales on Sunday.

The NUJ chapel members have unanimously passed a motion which states the chapel “expresses shock at the scale of editorial cuts being proposed”, adding that “it is determined to do everything possible to protect the jobs, wages and conditions of its members, as well as the quality of our products”.

Father of the chapel Martin Shipton said: “We shall be entering an intensive period of negotiation with management to mitigate the damage to our members’ livelihood and the newspapers we produce.

“Members are especially angry that while they are expected to lose their jobs or in some cases take pay cuts, Sly Bailey and her fellow directors continue to be paid obscene amounts of money.”

Within the motion the chapel also authorises its committee “to take whatever action it sees fit in association with the union’s national officers”, which could include organising a strike ballot.

In a statement Media Wales confirmed the proposals, which centre on the introduction of a single production team for news and features across the Western Mail, South Wales Echo, Wales on Sunday and all its weekly titles.

This means cuts to the number of full-time roles in the editorial production department and the introduction of a new part-time system, the company said.Similar Posts:

#jpod: The top news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 17 June 2011

Rachel McAthy — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:02:54 +0000

Listen below for this week’s news round-up from Journalism.co.uk’s senior reporter Rachel McAthy and sign up to our iTunes podcast feed for future audio.

This week’s podcast looks at: Guardian Media Group’s announcement that it is now a digital-first organisation, amid confirmation that it lost £33 million in the last financial year and is seeking to make £25 million worth of savings over the next five years; calls from the Foreign Office for an independent investigation into alleged war crimes uncovered by Channel 4; and an announcement from the BBC that it has begun the sale of the iconic Television Centre.

We’re currently looking at ways to develop this podcast, let us know by email of your ideas on topics you would like to see covered more in depth in the future.

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Guardian: ‘This was not a redundancy announcement’

Joel Gunter — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:37:58 +0000

Predictably, speculation about potential job cuts at Guardian News and Media (GMG) has been rife since yesterday’s announcement that the company was seeking to make £25 million in savings over the next five years.

The Telegraph reported this morning that a cull could go as high as 175 staff, and both the Independent and Evening Standard reported certain job cuts.

A spokesperson for GMG flatly refuted the number in the Telegraph article and told Journalism.co.uk today that yesterday’s statement “was not a redundancy announcement”. He refused to rule out job cuts, however.

“Yesterday’s briefing was not a redundancy announcement. We shared with staff our current position and a strategy to transform the organisation, and said we would work with staff and unions to achieve it. Of course no media company can rule out redundancies in the current climate, but we will talk to staff about issues like that first.”

Yesterday’s statement from GMG confirmed that the company suffered operating losses of £33 million in the last financial year and announced its newspaper titles the Guardian and the Observer would be switching to a “digital-first” strategy.Similar Posts:

#jpod: The top news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 6 May 2011

Rachel McAthy — Fri, 06 May 2011 17:41:14 +0000

Listen below for this week’s news round-up from Journalism.co.uk’s senior reporter Rachel McAthy and sign up to our iTunes podcast feed for future audio.

This week’s jpod reports on the BBC’s announcement of 45 more job losses within its News division, the unanimous vote for a ballot on strike action at Newsquest South London and the latest figures on News Corporation’s iPad newspaper the Daily.

We also hear from our technology reporter Sarah Marshall on how Journalism.co.uk has used Peer Index to compile a list of the UK’s 100 most influential journalists online.

There is also more information on Journalism.co.uk’s fourth news:rewired event, noise to signal, which takes place on 27 May at Thomson Reuters, Canary Wharf.

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Norfolk blogger supports Archant journalists facing job cuts

Sarah Booker — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:17:54 +0000

Food blogger and pie maker Brays Cottage Pork Pies has voiced support for Archant journalists facing job cuts, hosting a guest post from a former reporter.

Blogger “Sarah” describes local newspapers as “part of the warp and weft of a community ” and states Norfolk has some of the best in the Eastern Daily Press (EDP) and The Norwich Evening News.

She goes on to urge people to email Archant expressing their concerns about job losses.

The anonymous reporter highlights campaigns championed by Archant publications and the role of local newspapers within the community, in their contribution.

If public bodies are making cuts (aren’t they all?) who’s going to tell you about it and who’s going to give you a voice to shout about it?

Who’s going to tell you about crime, both major and minor, on your doorstep? Who’s going to tell you about events in your neighbourhood?

Who’s going to highlight the ordinary people who do extraordinary things to help charities and the community? Who’s going to tell you the quirky little stories that make you smile over your cornflakes?

The full blog post can be found here.

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Debate: Will other reporters follow Tindle’s and strike over quality?

Sarah Marshall — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:42:27 +0000

Journalists at Tindle newspapers in north London are striking over the declining quality of the nine newspapers written by just three news reporters.

They complain they cannot leave the office to cover court stories, council meetings and are delivering a poor product to readers.

They are saying “enough is enough” and downing tools for a full two weeks. Nine editorial staff will walk out from Tuesday.

Tindle has said it will aim to produce the Enfield papers during the strike. Father of the chapel and features editor of the north London papers Jonathan Lovett speculated that they would do this by asking staff from other regional centres to cover.

So are the striking Tindle nine bravely leading the way to stop “churnalism” and deliver a better quality product for readers or are they standing on a picket line for two weeks only to ask the impossible of a company which has been hit by declining sales and advertising?

And, of course, cuts and declining quality is not just happening at Tindle newspapers.

It’s not just Tindle’s arts pages that are cut back, reporters who are over worked and council meetings that are ignored.

The last three years have seen cuts in regional newspapers across the country.

Jobs have been lost, subs’ posts have disappeared, production has moved way beyond the area where the spellings of councillors’ names and villages are known, football reports have been written a long way from the pitch and change pages have been reduced.

So can the quality of regional newspapers be upheld by industrial action taken by the reporters who write them? We would like to know your opinions on this issue.Similar Posts:

OJB: Three things the BBC has done for online journalism

Joel Gunter — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:40:18 +0000

Three weeks on from the announcement that the BBC would cut 360 jobs as part of a 25 per cent cut to its online budget, Paul Bradshaw looks at three things the corporation has done for online journalism.

1. Web writing style

The BBC’s way of writing for the web has always been a template for good web writing, not least because of the BBC’s experience with having to meet similar challenges with Ceefax – the two shared a content management system and journalists writing for the website would see the first few pars of their content cross-published on Ceefax too.

Even now it is difficult to find an online publisher who writes better for the web.

Full post on Online Journalism Blog at this link.Similar Posts:

Broadcast journalist Michael Goldfarb on life after redundancy

Rachel McAthy — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:08:47 +0000

PoynterOnline.org has an interesting but unfortunately all-too-familiar story of a journalist – Michael Goldfarb – who lost his job during company cut backs five years ago. In an interview he shares his experiences of finding his feet as a freelancer and at times the realisisation of how little his years of experience would help him in his job search.

It was 5 July 2005, the day of the London bombings which Goldfarb had spent hours in the studio covering. When he got a call from his boss, he expected it would be to congratulate him on his work, but instead it was to break the news that his job was being cut.

Goldfarb soon returned to his post-WBUR life as a freelance journalist following failed attempts to find teaching work – his 20 years of experience seemingly not enough to replace a lacking MA – but while financially he remains at a loss, Goldfarb’s talents as a journalist don’t seem to have gone unnoticed, with current projects including a monthly BBC TV news discussion, work with Globalpost.com and a new book in the pipeline.

But he remains concerned about an industry which he feels has given up on serving its audience.

I feel like a cavalry officer who has had two horses shot out from under him in the same battle. Serious reporting, serious writing: where is the audience for it in America anymore? I know It’s there, but the people who manage the news and book business have given up trying to serve it.

See the full interview here…Similar Posts:

MediaGuardian: 20 more job cuts at Times as 40 take voluntary redundancy

Laura Oliver — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 07:53:13 +0000

The Times will make 20 compulsory redundancies after completing its voluntary redundancy scheme. Forty editorial staff took voluntary redundancy. Details of where further cuts will be made will be announced in 48 hours, according to the Guardian.

The Times recently launched a new website as part of plans to introduce a site-wide paywall later this month.

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

Advertising Age: US newspapers cut 109,500 jobs in past five years

Laura Oliver — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:37:18 +0000

Advertising Age’s article from earlier this week on the difficulties faced by media advertising staff making the transition from selling print space to going digital is worth a read – not least for the statistics it offers on media job cuts in the US:

Between January 2005 and January 2010, newspapers eliminated 109,500 jobs and magazines shed 19,400, according to an Ad Age DataCenter analysis of Bureau of Labour Statistics’ jobs data. During that same period, jobs at internet media companies, portals and search engines grew by 18,300.

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

Job cuts at the London Evening Standard?

Judith Townend — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:19:05 +0000

This from Evening Standard city reporter Lucy Tobin on Twitter…

Update: the company’s spokesperson confirmed the changes and threatened jobs.

The Guardian has reported that up to 20 editorial and production jobs are at risk; when Journalism.co.uk asked the Standard to confirm the report, a spokesperson said a firm number could not be announced ‘at this stage’ and a consultation period is underway.

All 600,000 copies copies of the Standard – which became a free newspaper in October 2009 – will be printed later in the day ( the West End Final edition) from January.

“Printing will begin in the afternoon, with the latest developing stories being updated on the presses as they run until early evening,” a release said.

“The response to our recent decision to make the Evening Standard a free quality newspaper has been overwhelming,” said editor Geordie Greig. “This decision will mean our news is even more up to date, and more copies will be available for home-going commuters.”Similar Posts:

Possibility of more redundancies at the Guardian; GNM losing £100,000 a day

Judith Townend — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:20:14 +0000

Fifty editorial jobs needed to be cut at Guardian News&Media as part of an attempt to reduce costs by £10 million, it was announced in May this year. Now it looks like there could be more jobs at risk, as the managing director of Guardian News & Media, Tim Brooks, told staff in a memo posted on the Guardian’s intranet.

“We are looking at everything – literally everything – that we do, to see how we can economise, and we will do whatever we can to keep the impact on staff to a minimum. However, because the biggest portion of our costs is people’s salaries, we have to review staffing levels,” he said.

GNM was losing £100,000 a day – a rate that cannot be afforded by its parent company, Guardian Media Group, Brooks said.

Guardian.co.uk: Current losses unsustainable, GNM managing director warns staff
Telegraph.co.uk: Guardian staff told to expect redundancies

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Dan Mason: ‘Five things journalists should do now – before they face redundancy’

Judith Townend — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:36:17 +0000

“I’ve seen both sides of the story,” writes Dan Mason, a former regional newspaper editor (Coventry Evening Telegraph and Birmingham Post) and most recently, managing editor of 12 weeklies in London.

His post looks at ‘five things journalists should do now – before they face the threat of redundancy’. “It’s a beginning more than an ending,” he writes.

Firstly, ‘understand the redundancy process clearly BEFORE it starts,’ he says.

Full post at this link…Similar Posts: