Tag Archives: the Manchester Evening News

MEN’s paid-for digital edition actively targets football fans

HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk reports that the Manchester Evening News has launched a paid-for digital edition of a Manchester United souvenir supplement, produced using PageSuite‘s technology.

Readers can pay £1 for the 42-page supplement, which includes extra video content and interviews in its digital format.

As paidContent:UK points out, labelling the digital edition launch as a paywall experiment may be taking things too far. But it seems the MEN isn’t just uploading the printed version to try and sell it online, but is instead actively targetting Manchester United fans with a voucher deal.

PageSuite told Journalism.co.uk that the MEN is forwarding voucher codes for a 20 per cent discount on the digital edition to specific supporters clubs around the world – a different code for each club so it can track the response – and the clubs are giving their code to their registered members.

#FollowJourn: @foodiesarah/digital editor

#FollowJourn: Sarah Hartley

Who? Digital editor at Guardian News & Media

What? Has also worked in digital at the Manchester Evening News, also freelance media trainer and consultant – see her LinkedIn profile here

Where? @foodiesarah

Contact? Contact her on Twitter or via her blog

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

The Drum: ‘BNP begins complaint campaign aimed at MEN’s advertisers’

“The BNP is encouraging its supporters to complain to the Manchester Evening News’ advertisers following the paper’s editorial stance urging readers not to vote for the party in next week’s European elections,” reports the Drum.

[If you’re not registered, you’ll need to do so first in order to read] Full story at this link…

7pm GMT @Frontline Club: ‘Is it too late for local papers?’

Journalism.co.uk is off to the Frontline Club tonight – in person, and everything. Tweet @journalismnews with questions for the panel which consists of:

Roy Greenslade, Commentator and Columnist, Jon Slattery, Freelance journalist, William Yarker, Director in Deloitte’s Media Consulting Practice and others.

“What is the importance of local newspapers and how bad is the crisis? Following in the footsteps of GMG and The Manchester Evening news, the Daily Mail group cut 1000 jobs from their regional arm this week. Could regional news soon be a thing of the past or can the industry find ways to survive?”

Update 15/04/09: final video and news items from Journalism.co.uk below:

NUJ Release: Vote of no confidence in Scott Trust after regional cuts

Journalists within GMG Regional Media ‘have declared a vote of no confidence in the Scott Trust Ltd over a decision to make sweeping job cuts’.

“Members at the NUJ chapel, which represents six weekly titles in the south of Greater Manchester unanimously passed the motion after the company announced 78 redundancies across GMG’s weekly titles and sister paper the Manchester Evening News,” the National Union of Journalists has announced.

Full release at this link…

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

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.”

MediaGuardian: Manchester Evening News weekly offices to go – 150 jobs axed

“MEN Media, the publisher of the Manchester Evening News and 22 weeklies based in the north west, is closing all editorial offices of its weekly newspapers and axing 150 jobs,” reports MediaGuardian.

Production of the group’s weekly newspapers will be centralised in the MEN offices in Scott Place in central Manchester, the report continues.

Full story at this link…

Manchester Evening News mojo captures Ronaldo crash

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.

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

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…

Updated: Inside the Manchester Evening News’ newsroom

As part of tomorrow’s today’s National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) skills conference in Manchester, delegates from the event were yesterday treated to a tour of the Manchester Evening News‘ newsroom.

Journalism.co.uk is much obliged to MEN’s Sarah Hartley for the slideshow of the tour below, which appeared originally on the paper’s The Mancunian Way blog:

As part of the tour, MEN editor Paul Horrocks explained how the newsroom has helped teams from the group’s daily and weekly titles – and Channel M staff – integrate:

Her Twitter coverage of the tour can be seen on @foodiesarah @sarah_hartley.