Category Archives: Job losses

Brighton Argus: Twitter account and strike blog boost picket line protests

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Today journalists from the Newsquest-owned Brighton Argus took to the picket line for the second day of strikes, in protest at plans to relocate their subbing operations to Southampton and the loss of seven jobs at the title.

The strike action on both days went beyond the picket line in Brighton, with campaigning staff using social media to spread the word. The group produced a Twitter account @argus_strike, posting videos, pictures and comments throughout the action.

There was also a Argus strike blog set up in the lead up to the action, featuring information on why the staff were striking, campaign links as well as vox-pops with readers. Web editor Jo Wadsworth even called on the title’s community correspondents to support the action by not crossing a virtual picket line, and postponing any submissions to the site until the weekend.

The sub-editors made redundant say they were originally told today would be their last day, but told Journalism.co.uk yesterday they may be asked to work on for another two to four weeks to help with the movement of production down to Southampton.

Members of the National Union of Journalists, local politicians and other supporters stood outside the offices in the south-east town, with the number of journalists estimated to reflect around three quarters of the editorial team at the picket’s peak.

Journalism.co.uk produced this video report, speaking to members of the union and those losing their jobs.

NUJ members ballot for strike at north-east Newsquest titles

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National Union of Journalists members across a series of Newsquest-owned north-east titles have started to ballot for industrial action against proposed redundancies and a continuing pay freeze, according to a report from the union.

Members at Newsquest Northeast, which includes The Darlington and Stockton Times, Durham Times and the Advertiser series, have also unanimously passed a motion of no confidence in the chief executives of Newsquest and Newsquest’s US parent company Gannett.

In the NUJ release, the union’s Northern and Midlands organiser, Chris Morley said the proposed loss of eight jobs in the region is the “final straw” for staff:

The proposed redundancies spell disaster for the titles. It is a short-sighted policy that will result in lower quality and readership declining, as editorial staff are stretched ever more thinly.

Staff are shocked at Newsquest’s preparedness to jettison so many of their most valuable assets – experienced, dedicated staff who have been responsible for the success of the titles. We are not prepared to stand by and allow Newsquest to press ahead with their plans for staff redundancies and, ultimately, business suicide.

Tomorrow NUJ members at the Brighton Argus, also part of the Newquest group, will start a two-day strike in response to job losses at the title and the relocation of its subbing operation to Southampton.

Guardian: Hundreds of jobs at risk at BBC World Service

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Director of BBC Global News Peter Horrocks has warned that hundreds of jobs will “need to go” at the World Service following government funding cuts, the Media Guardian reported yesterday.

Horrocks told MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee that the World Service would propose the closure of some foreign-language broadcasts in the face of the cuts, the report adds.

“We are a very staff-heavy organisation, most of our costs are in people,” Horrocks told MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee. “So the reduction in staff numbers will be broadly in line with the level of savings that we need to make, ie more than 16 per cent. Our staffing is 2,000 so you can work it out relatively straightforwardly. It will be hundreds of jobs that need to go.”

Extinction timeline: UK newspapers given nine years to live

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Newspapers in the UK will be “extinct” in their current form by 2019, according to predictions by futurist Ross Dawson.

Earlier this week, Dawson has created a ‘Newspaper extinction timeline’, which suggests that while newspapers worldwide will exist in their current form beyond 2040, the US will be the first country to lose the printed paper in 2017.

Factors driving the pace of newspaper extinction on a global scale, according to Dawson, include: changes in newsprint and production costs; increased cost performance of tablets and e-reader; and the development of high performance digital paper.

On a national level he has taken economic, demographic, political and technological factors into consideration. More explanation is given on Dawson’s blog.

Dawson’s predictions have provoked some strong reaction on his own blog and elsewhere. But there’s a thoughtful response from INMA’s director and CEO Earl Wilkinson:

What I like about Dawson’s nudge is that it reminds us that the clock is ticking. We can’t work fast enough at the corporate level or the industry level to develop digital platforms that connect with readers and advertisers. We can’t work fast enough to build multimedia companies where print, online, mobile, iPad and others each play to their strengths and interact. Just as we were warned in the 1990s that classified advertising could disappear and we need to prepare for that, we need to be preparing today for an all-digital future – whether that comes in 2025, 2050, 2100, or some year beyond the reach of our great-grandchildren.

Here’s an interesting exercise for your management team: pick the date Dawson says your country’s newspapers will be “insignificant” and work backward. What would you need to do between today and that date to transform your business model and generate enough revenue to preserve today’s level of journalism at a sufficiently profitable level? We may all make similar choices, but my guess is the sense of urgency is more intense in the United States than India.

Details of BBC funding cuts leaked ahead of spending review

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A formal announcement is expected to be made later today in George Osbourne’s comprehensive spending review outlining the changes the government has made to BBC funding. But details of the plans have already been widely reported: the BBC itself reports that the broadcaster is set to have its licence fee frozen for the next six years, will have to take on the cost of its World Service and fund the Welsh language channel S4C.

Last month Journalism.co.uk reported that the World Service, which is currently funded by the Foreign Office, was understood to be facing ‘significant cuts’ as part of the review.

News that the corporation would have to pay for the World Service was met with concern yesterday from the National Union of Journalists, which claimed Macedonian, Serbian, Vietnamese and Moldovan language services could close, or be “drastically cut” as a result.

The union also said it also fears job losses at the BBC World Service newsroom in London, the Turkish TV service, the Central Asian and Bengali services, the Spanish American service and the Arabic service. Job cuts could also impact on up to 350 jobs at the BBC Monitoring Service in Caversham, the union added. In a release from the NUJ, general secretary Jeremy Dear said:

The World Service is a vital source of quality journalism; people all over the world rely on the BBC to tell them the truth in times of crisis. If the Government slashes these essential services they will land a blow on objective news reporting and undermine Britain’s international reputation.

According to a report from the Telegraph the BBC has also “extracted a commitment from the BBC to spend less on its website”.

For more information on how news organisations will be covering the spending review today, see this post from Journalism.co.uk.

Media Release: BBC axes deputy director general post and Mark Byford

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The BBC has announced it will cut the role of deputy director general, making current incumbent Mark Byford redundant. Byford took up the post in 2004 and has been at the BBC for 32 years.

Speaking in a release, BBC director general Mark Thompson says:

We have concluded – and Mark fully accepts – that the work he has done to develop our journalism and editorial standards across the BBC has achieved the goals we set to such an extent that the role of deputy director-general can now end, that the post should close at the end of the current financial year, and that Mark himself should be made redundant.

Byford will step down from the corporation’s executive board at the end of March and depart from the BBC in early summer. Helen Boaden. director, BBC News, will join the executive board to represent BBC Journalism in April.

Full BBC press release at this link…

Ad Age: Internet media employment at peak since 2001 despite falls elsewhere

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Advertising Age research suggests that media companies in the US have cut one in seven jobs since the start of the recession. But employment at internet media firms has risen to its highest level since 2001, according to the figures, which the title has been collecting since 1981.

Internet media companies and broadcast TV have seen solid year-to-date job gains. There’s even hope in newspapers, where recent monthly job cuts are at the lowest level since the start of the recession.

The chart below of Advertising Age’s stats shows the percentage change in the number of jobs in each media sector since December 2007:

As part of its ranking, Advertising Age looks at the leading 100 media companies in the US to see how they have fared over the past year in comparison to the rest of the industry.

Full results can be seen in this report (registration required), but some key points:

  • Revenue for the US’ top media firms rose by 6.1 per cent in the first half of 2010;
  • Video and broadband providers accounted for 39 per cent of 2009’s net revenue for the top 100 media companies;
  • According to Ad Age, media employment has risen consecutively for two months – for the first time since 2006.

Broadcast journalist Michael Goldfarb on life after redundancy

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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…