National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has learned of plans to reduce frequency of the Birmingham Post and potentially cut eight weekly titles from the region.
NUJ Release: Trinity Mirror to axe eight Birmingham weekly titles
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Category Archives: Job losses
Brighton Argus printing presses could close; 53 jobs threatened
Journalism.co.uk has learned that Newsquest is considering closing the printing presses for the Argus in Brighton.
Fifty-three jobs could be lost as a result, Journalism.co.uk was informed by a member of staff at the paper, and a 30-day consultation period will be undertaken.
We will follow up for further information with the concerned parties, although an enquiry to Newsquest Sussex yesterday about proposed subbing job cuts received this response: “We do not comment on our business.”
Update: The company did not wish to comment, when contacted.
(Jon Slattery beat us to it and noted reported closure of the presses on his blog too).
Yesterday we reported:
“There is speculation among staff members that the Argus will move ‘most if not all’ of its production to the Southampton centre in the future.
“‘They’re also proposing to move a subbing job focused on ad features, and six advertising jobs on the Propertynet online system, to Southampton,’ the chapel member said.”
Editor&Publisher: Laid-off journalists gain multimedia work with NGOs/corporates
“A PR message has no authenticity. It won’t go viral. Organizations are looking for a new way to get their message out, and journalists can play a role in that,” says Brian Storm, founder of MediaStorm, in this piece, which looks at how US photographers, videographers and videojournalists are finding new commissions outside of traditional journalistic gigs.
Dan Baum: A short career at the New Yorker tweet-by-tweet
We’re a little late off the mark with this Editors’ Pick, but it’s a goody. @DanielSBaum’s tweet-by-tweet account of his:
“… Short Career at The New Yorker
Ran as a Series of Tweets on
May 8, 11, and 12, 2009″
Trials of a redundant journalist: Don’t forget the contacts
Don’t forget the contacts… and hopefully they won’t forget you.
As soon as I knew I was jobless, I started to let friends, family and acquaintances know of my new situation – and my availability to do anything.
But I didn’t stop there. I’ve always been good at keeping in touch with people, usually a couple of people at least from every place I’ve worked/done work experience, and even if there aren’t any job offers immediately available, the moral support I’ve received has been great. Believe me, you need it to keep you going through the job applications.
However, what I also recommend is going through your work contacts book. While I never met with anyone in my contacts book on a social level, there were some people I could think of immediately with whom I had good working relationships and who I knew would not only be sympathetic to my situation, but were also well-connected.
Again, they won’t necessarily hand me jobs on a plate, but the important thing is they will have dealt with me on a professional level and know of my work enough be able to recommend me where possible.
I can’t divulge too much about how this is going yet – but what I can say is that there’s been enough activity on this front to make it worthwhile, and I highly recommend it. After all, in the incestuous world of journalism, you never know when you might cross paths with your contacts again.
A new blog series which will run until our new guest blogger, The FleetStreetBlues Redundant Journalist finds a job or gets too busy to blog. Follow the Trials of a Redundant Journalist series, by the Redundant Journalist, here. She is also posting her updates on FleetStreetBlues.
Trials of a redundant journalist: Days one, two and three
A new blog series which will run until our new guest blogger, who writes on the FleetStreetBlues site, and types really really fast, finds a job or gets too busy to blog. A weeks ago, this update came from FleetStreetBlues:
“A regular FleetStreetBlues contributor, without any warning, just got her marching orders this afternoon. ‘Global downturn… blah blah… smaller issues… blah blah… no advertising… blah blah… nothing we could do.’
“We’ve been writing about it for long enough – redundancies, cut-backs, journalists forced out of the profession they love – so it shouldn’t really come as a shock, but it does.
“And while we know all the things to do – networking, proactive job hunting, polishing your CV – being made redundant brings a whole new set of questions you never even considered. Like when updating the employment section of your CV… What’s a nice way of saying you just got fired?”
The FSB Redundant Journalist will cross-post her updates here. Journalism.co.uk welcomes her to this temporary blogging spot, and wishes her the best of luck in the job hunt. Here’s day one, two and three: more to come.
Follow the Trials of a Redundant Journalist series, by the Redundant Journalist, here.
DAY ONE: I’ve been unemployed for ten days.
It’s Bank Holiday Monday and thankfully, the sun is not shining. This is because I don’t have the luxury of being employed and enjoying such benefits as bank holidays.Technically every day of unemployment is a holiday, but the major downside is that my other half is breathing down my neck to get a new job so I have no choice but to get on with applying. My dreams of being a lady who lunches are yet to be fulfilled. During this recession at least.
Like everyone else, we’ve got our bills to pay, which means that in an industry where a suitable, good new job comes by once in a blue moon, I have had to cast my net further afield.
At first, the thought of going to the dark side, of PR, appalled me. My stomach churned at the thought of proactive PR in particular. But after nearly two weeks of job hunting, I must confess – those jobs are starting to look rather appealing. And it’s not just the pay.
It took me a couple of days to figure out what else I was qualified for, having wanted to be a journalist for most of my life and having work experience in little else, and to find out where to look for alternative jobs, having lived on Gorkana and Journalism.co.uk [Good call. Ed.] for the past three years. But it seems that if nothing else, I’d make a great office assistant.
Don’t mock too much – admin assistants get paid even better than journalists in a lot of cases, and if you’re looking for a stop-gap job to bring home the bacon while you keep an eye out for that lucrative journalism job, why not do something that requires little brain effort, therefore allowing you to save your energy for those applications for jobs you actually would want?
DAY TWO: So last week, I wowed the world with my WPM.’Are you sure that’s your typing speed?’
‘Er, I think so…I did those online typing speed tests.’
‘But are you sure? Most people are 70 words per minute, but 90 words per minute would be super-duper fast (yes, her exact phrase) – legal secretary fast.’
‘Er…’
‘Come in and we’ll register you and while we’re at it, we’ll test your typing speed.’
So that’s how I ended up at general recruitment agency number one. And ok, I didn’t wow ‘the world’, but I managed to surprise myself and the agency by proving that I have a touch-typing wpm of 95.
DAY THREE: There’s an emotional curve to redundancy. After I got over the initial shock of being made redundant, the next emotion was anger at the unfairness of the situation, quite closely followed by depression.
I was just a few days into the depression stage, however, when a little spark of hope landed my way – in the form of a freelance commission. On a subject I knew nothing about, but journalism work nonetheless.
Although I’d been unemployed for about just a week by this stage, it’s hard to describe quite how happy I was to be calling people up to interview them for the article.
Mundane as this may seem once you’ve got a journalism job, it also seemed the most natural thing for me to do (after all, it’s what I’ve been doing on a daily basis for the past two years) and it made one thing really clear to me – I’ll never be able to give up journalism for ever. Or at least it will be hard to give up without a fight.
PostGlobe: Former Seattle P-I online producer on unemployment and journalism’s future
Interesting piece from last week: Jake Ellison, former designer, reporter and online producer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reflects on his decision to take redundancy when the title’s print edition ceased.
“I, like most bloggers and formerly employed journalists, am now writing for free, and that is not a sustainable social model for finding, investigating and sharing information about the powerful, the greedy and the downtrodden,” he writes.
MediaGuardian: Guardian News&Media to cut ‘about 50’ editorial positions
“Guardian News & Media is looking to cut about 50 editorial staff by the end of the year as part of a plan to reduce editorial costs by £10m,” reports MediaGuardian.
NUJ Release: Journalists thank the people of West Yorkshire
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) reports that journalists were due to hand out thank you letters to the people of West Yorkshire today.
“NUJ members from the Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post and Leeds Weekly News want to show their appreciation for the support they received during thirteen days of strike action over compulsory redundancies.”
David Steele: ‘How the Baltimore Sun fired me’
David Steele, a sports columnist, formerly of the Baltimore Sun and the San Francisco Chronicle, describes being laid off on three occasions: at 21, 26 and most recently, at 44 years old. The latter two took place in the same location…
“To answer your question: yes, it felt just as bad as you imagine it would. To answer another of your questions: no, I have no real desire to visit the press box at an Orioles game any time soon. Next time, maybe I’ll be told that they’re foreclosing on my house during the seventh-inning stretch.”