Category Archives: Jobs

MediaGuardian: News International to cut 80 staff, as more digital execs leave Telegraph

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Following yesterday’s news that the Times and Sunday Times are looking to cut 80 staff between them and editorial budgets by 10 per cent to stem sever daily losses of around £240,000, Times editor James Harding has told staff that all departments will be involved in cost-cutting to protect the future of its journalism:

In an email to staff, reports MediaGuardian, Harding says:

We are clearly in a period of galloping technological change and we need to ensure that we have the resources to invest so that we can lead the market in digital journalism (…) Today, we are starting a process to cut costs, reduce our losses and free up resources for the future of our journalism.

Full story at this link…

Meanwhile, Will Lewis’ departure from the Telegraph has been followed by exits for Chris Lloyd, deputy managing editor at Telegraph Media Group, and Rhidian Wynn Davies, consulting editor – both key executives in Lewis’ digital operation, Euston Partners.

Full story at this link…

Tricks and tips for journalism and editorial job hunting online – an update

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Journalism lecturer Andy Dickinson (@digidickinson) has now updated his recent SlideShare and blog post on how to find editorial jobs online, which we featured on this blog last week, to include a more detailed transcript of his talk.

His blog post this week contains lots of handy tips for the dedicated journalism jobseeker, so if you are in the market for a new job, check it out.

Meanwhile, here at Journalism.co.uk, we have produced a new page explaining how to get the most out of our own jobs board, including six step-by-step videos taking you through the jobseeker registration process and various alert systems. Here are the benefits, all of which are free:

  • ability to save jobs you have searched for and liked for later;
  • ability to upload and store your CV;
  • ability to apply online and save your applications for future re-use/modification;
  • ability to register a personal statement so that our can advertisers can find you using our CV match service;
  • ability to receive job opportunities by daily email;
  • ability to create customised RSS feeds based on your own search criteria.

I would urge you to take a few minutes to sign up, even if you are not necessarily looking to make a move now. You never know what opportunity might coming knocking on your door.

Finally, if you are on the other side of the fence and looking to recruit editorial staff, please read why you should advertise your vacancies on Journalism.co.uk here, and register to post your jobs here.

Recruitment advertising helps fund our free content, so if you like what we do this is one great way to support us!

Useful reading:

Job application tips

How to prepare a killer CV

How to prepare for that crucial interview

How to make the most out of work experience

Andy Dickinson: a guide to digital journalism job hunting

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Online journalism lecturer Andy Dickinson (@digidickinson) recently gave a lecture to his broadcast students advising on ways to find jobs online and promote themselves digitally.

His presentation appears in this slideshare:

Here’s another tip for creating a customised jobs feed using Journalism.co.uk’s jobs board search facility.

In the top left-hand column on most of the pages on Journalism.co.uk, you will see a panel headed “Job of the week”. About half-way down there is a dropdown menu that allows you to search by job type. For this example, select “editorial assistants and trainees” and click “go”.

On the subsequent search results page, you will see at the top of the central column an advanced search form. This allows you to make a more detailed search based on sectors, categories, salary and location. You will also see an option under format to “return search results as RSS feed”. Select that and also tick “editorial assistants and trainees” under the “categories” section.

Click the search button and, voila, you will be presented with a customised RSS feed containing only editorial assistant and trainee vacancies.

FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US

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Reed Business Information is to close 23 B2B magazine titles in the US. FOLIO reports:

About nine months after putting the brands published under the U.S. arm of Reed Business Information on the block again, Reed Elsevier announced today that it is closing down the magazines it has not been able to sell or does not intend to keep. In total, the number of magazines to be closed down is 23.

According to FOLIO, parent company Reed Elsevier declined to comment on the number of job losses as a result.

Full post at this link…

Tribune agreement could bring bankruptcy exit

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US newspaper publisher Tribune Company has reached an agreement with its creditors and lenders that will help it emerge from bankruptcy protection later this year, according to news from Reuters.

Tribune, which publishes the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, filed for bankruptcy in 2008. The new agreement settles  all potential claims stemming from the 2007 $8.2 billion (£5.4 billion) Tribune leveraged buyout by Sam Zell in 2007.

The agreement has come under criticism from a group of junior boldholders holding $1.2bn (£780 million) of Tribune debt. They claim to have been unfairly cut out of the negotiating process, and have further criticised the make-up of the creditors committee, which includes bank lenders, normally excluded from such groups.

Full story by Reuters at this link.

Editor&Publisher: New AP regional investigative teams will boost CAR and data journalism

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The Associated Press (AP) is creating four regional investigative teams to support its staff across the US with “reporting and presentation resources”, in particular by using journalists with expertise in computer-assisted reporting (CAR), Flash interactives and access to public records.

Now, any reporter in a region who has an idea for a story that requires high-level data analysis will have a partner. If an editor has an idea for a project that lends itself to an interactive map or another data-driven multimedia project, they can work with the team. When a big, breaking story happens anywhere in the country, we’ll tap the region’s I-team [the name given to the newly created teams] to begin digging into public records and inspection reports while the story is still developing, not days after the fact.

Full story at this link…

Jeremy Dear: ‘Self-harm – there should be a BBC website about that’

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National Union of Journalists (NUJ) general secretary Jeremy Dear has strongly criticised the BBC Trust and the corporation’s strategic review of its online activities in a post on his blog.

He describes the Trust’s decision to delay the launch of BBC iPhone apps as a move to “prostrate themselves before the commercial sector”, before suggesting that the proposed changes to the BBC’s websites don’t add up:

They are going to cut 25 per cent of staff – and yet every time they are asked which sites and which staff, they refer to mothballed sites, links that just redirect or pages that haven’t been updated since 2006. So we ask the question again – come clean. Which sites and which staff are to be axed. You are paid lots of money. You’ve had months to come up with the plan. So tell us. Or do you intend to wait until the consultation is over, then spring it on staff and readers.

Full post at this link…

Crikey.com.au: Layoffs at BBC Worldwide’s Lonely Planet

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Crikey.com.au reports that eight roles are to be cut at BBC Worldwide’s Lonely Planet website, based in Melbourne, Australia.

The axe has fallen on guide book behemoth Lonely Planet’s tight-knit team of website writers, with eight content production roles made redundant at the whim of the company’s BBC management.

Shocked staff were informed yesterday of the decision to dissolve the positions, which included two core veterans that had been with the company for years. Lonely Planet management is yet to make a formal announcement, but the firm’s Footscray office is in meltdown, with angry staffers taking to Facebook to criticise their employer and the company’s digital strategy.

Full post at this link…

Despite group redundancies and pay freeze, Johnston Press CEO’s pay package nears £1m

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Redundancies across the group and a pay freeze for all staff haven’t stopped the Johnston Press bosses taking home rather juicy bonuses for 2009.  As reported by the Times earlier this month, Johnston Press closed five papers last year, and 768 staff left the group in 2009. Pre-tax profits for 2009 were £43 million, a drop of 56 per cent.

But as reported by Johnston Press’ own paper, the Scotsman, John Fry, the group’s chief executive, took home £959,000 in pay, benefits and bonuses in 2009.

The package, reported in the group’s annual report this week, included: £210,000 cash bonus; a £210,000 performance-related bonus paid in shares (deferred for three years); and a basic salary of £525,000.

The Scotsman reports that his predecessor, Tim Bowdler, who retired in early 2009, was awarded £573,000 in basic pay in 2008. “All executive directors waived their right to a performance-related bonus that year,” it says.

Basic salary for the group’s two other executive directors, chief financial officer Stuart Paterson and chief operating officer Danny Cammiade, did not increase but they took home total packages of £655,000 and £590,000 respectively. In 2008 they took home £363,000 and £342,000 in total, respectively.

Here’s the comparison visualised in a chart. This shows the % change in £ from 2008 figures to 2009 figures (we’ve compared Fry’s pay package with Bowdler’s). The middle column at 0 represents the basic salary pay freeze across the group.

Blue: JP CEO pay package / Red: JP chief financial officer pay package / Yellow: chief operating officer pay package / Green: basic pay rise across group / Grey: total group revenue / Dark blue: advertising revenue / Magenta: JP pre-tax profit

Full Scotsman report at this link…

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

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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…