Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » Trinity Mirror Regionals

Trinity Mirror Regionals: Vote of no confidence in management is ‘publicity-grabbing stunt’

Judith Townend — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:05:43 +0000

The National Union of Journalists announced yesterday that its members at Trinity Mirror titles in Birmingham have ‘unanimously passed a motion of no confidence in the company’s management of its regional titles.’ NUJ members at the Birmingham titles are currently balloting for action, following the announcement of job cuts and closure of weekly titles.

Trinity Mirror responded in a statement, accusing the NUJ of undermining efforts for the two parties to work together.

“This is yet another publicity-grabbing stunt by the NUJ which, once again, does absolutely nothing to address the commercial challenges facing our Midlands businesses and completely undermines their claims to be working constructively with us,” said Georgina Harvey, managing director at Trinity Mirror Regionals.

“A point further proved by the fact that, to date, we haven’t received a letter from the NUJ themselves and have only been made aware of its existence by the trade media.

“The NUJ’s constant claim that we are making cuts in the pursuit of short term profit is frankly laughable and insulting. The bottom line is the Midlands business is no longer profitable – it’s running at a loss. Our first priority has to be to stop the losses and reverse the trend. That will involve some hard choices; difficult decisions but necessary ones if we are to save our businesses in the Midlands.”Similar Posts:

Media Release: David Fordham named Newspaper Society president

Laura Oliver — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:03:49 +0000

David Fordham, chief executive of Iliffe News and Media, has been appointed as president of the Newspaper Society.

Georgina Harvey, Trinity Mirror Regionals managing director, has been named as vice president.

Full release at this link…Similar Posts:

Jay Rosen @ Journalism Leaders Forum: UK newspapers two years behind US in audience interaction

Oliver Luft — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:20:28 +0000

New York University Journalism School professor Jay Rosen told the Journalism Leaders Forum @ UCLAN, that based on what he had heard at the forum UK regional newspapers seemed two years behind the US for developing editorial products that relied on large-scale user-interaction.

Responding to comments made by Trinity Mirror Regionals editorial director Neil Benson, that the next year would be about experimenting with new editorial projects that relied on great audience interaction and overcoming journalists resistance to allowing the audience to interact, Rosen told the forum that those barriers to audience interaction began breaking down in the US two years ago and that newsrooms there were now addressing how best to cross ‘the digital sea’.

Listen here to Neil first explain his position (in response to a question from Chair Mike Ward about whether or not it was yet possible to see ‘scalable and durable’ models for editorial/user interaction products) then Jay comment on the developments in the UK (Note: both were phoning into the forum so the sound quality isn’t perfect).Similar Posts: