Tag Archives: Manchester Evening News

MEN journalists respond to news of arrested photographer

Journalists at the Manchester Evening News have responded to the news that photographer Sean Wilton was arrested after taking pictures of an incident near to the city’s magistrates’ court on Monday.

According to a report by MEN Wilton was later released, after being what the police termed “de-arrested”.

“I tried to explain I wasn’t obstructing and was just doing my job, but to no avail,” Wilton says in the report. “When I tried to speak to him about the situation, he arrested me for breach of the peace. As professional photographers, we do try to conduct ourselves as professionally as possible.”

In a statement (attributed to mother of the chapel Bethan Dorsett) his colleagues in the NUJ MEN chapel said its photographers always abide by industry codes of conduct.

To be treated in such a way by police is completely unacceptable and very worrying. Either police officers do not understand our rights and responsibilities or they sometimes choose to ignore them – either is disturbing and suggests some education would be useful. We are sure the NUJ and MENMedia would be more than happy to discuss and clarify these matters with the police.

The police issued the following statement:

A photographer was arrested to prevent a breach of the peace and on suspicion of obstructing a police officer. Officers brought the situation under control and the photographer was de-arrested and subsequently released.

Manchester Evening News lets football fans take over its masthead

Much has been written about the positives and negatives of personalised features on news websites, from user profiles to personalised homepages.

For me the Manchester Evening News has got its personalisation priorities right: registered readers can now choose between a blue masthead, designed for Manchester City fans; or keep the site’s traditional red colour theme if you a Manchester United fan.

(NB – for those of you that know my football allegiances please note that logging in as a blue was purely for work purposes)

NUJ members in Manchester join forces after MEN sale

More than a 100 NUJ members at the Manchester Evening News and its weekly counterparts are forming a joint chapel to strengthen the union’s rights and help prevent job losses.

The move follows the recent announcement of the MEN Media titles’ sale to Trinity Mirror and the union’s fears that it could lead to future job cuts.

NUJ also raised concerns that moving journalists from the communities they serve poses a threat to media diversity and plurality in the north west.

Journalism.co.uk reported last week that Trinity Mirror wants MEN staff to move from the Manchester base to Oldham, a proposal that was critised by MEN union members.

MEN mother of chapel Judy Gordon and MEN Weeklies mother of chapel Bethan Dorsett said in a joint statement: “Though traditionally the MEN and weeklies have been separate chapels, it is common sense to bring them together. After all we are now under one roof.

“A strong, united chapel made up of over 100 journalists can take positive action to prevent any job losses or other damaging changes that our new owners may want to implement at a later stage.”

NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear welcomes the move: “This is a big step forward for our members in Manchester and gives them added strength at a very important time.”

The deal with Trinity Mirror is to be completed on March 28.

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.

Round-up: Reaction to GMG Regionals sale to Trinity Mirror

Trinity Mirror’s acquisition of Guardian Media Group’s regional businesses, including Manchester Evening News publisher MEN Media, and plans to relocate MEN Media staff to Oldham has stirred mass discussion amongst media commentators online. Below are links breaking down the fundamental aspects of the story:

The Guardian’s Steve Busfield covers the imminent MEN move, reporting claims by Carolyn McCall, the chief executive of Guardian Media Groups, that the £44.8m sale of GMG is in the best interests of GMG Regional Media.

Holdthefrontpage.co.uk has a statement from Bethan Dorsett, organiser of the NUJ chapel at MEN Media Weeklies, and Judith Gordon, director of the MEN chapel, describing their concerns for MEN staff.

The Drum covers the various reactions produced by the deal, questioning whether Trinity got a good deal or gained a dying media group, including comments from analyst Jim Chisholm, who told the Drum it was “a great deal for Trinity Mirror” though “not such a great reflection of the way the regional print industry is today viewed”.

On Press Gazette, the financial benefits of the deal to GMG and Trinity Mirror – pointing towards the FT’s analysis of the sale, which considers the issue of consolidation, but comes down in favour of TM saying it was a bargain for the group.

Crain’s Manchester business takes notice of the exclusion of Channel M in the GMG sale to Trinity Mirror. Channel M lost GMG a significant amount of money since it’s launch and its segregation has left questions being asked about the channels future.

Marc Reeves: Why is GMG selling the cash cow?

Marc Reeves, founder of the newly launched Business Desk West Midlands, blogs on news the Guardian Media Group is to sell Manchester Evening News (MEN) to his former employer Trinity Mirror:

[T]he key questions: what do GMG and Trinity Mirror get out of the deal? For the latter, I think it’s pretty clear. With declining revenues and circulation, another round of consolidation is probably an inevitable strategy for the biggest groups, whose scale demands  that de-duplicating resources and cutting costs are required to counter the exodus of readers and advertisers. There’s also a very handy strategic regional  fit for the Manchester titles alongside Trinity’s existing Merseyside titles.

For GMG, though, it’s less clear. Does the disposal allow the group to concentrate on the march towards digital dominance  spearheaded by the Guardian brand? Or perhaps GMG has just decided that the ‘cash cow’ role of the regionals simply doesn’t work any more in the new media economy, and it’s better off without the distraction. Whatever the case, my money is on a rise in the number of deals  amongst the major publishers following  the TM-GMG shuffle, as more try to optimise the geographical ‘sense’ of their sometimes disparate and accidental portfolios.

The acquisition of the Manchester Evening News by Trinity Mirror – publishers of my old paper the Birmingham Post – has baffled some of my former colleagues.

Why would Guardian Media Group, MEN’s owner, sell the very cash cow that existed only to keep the venerable – and loss making – Guardian newspaper alive?

Moreover, why would Trinity Mirror embark on yet another bout of corporate indigestion as they attempt to swallow yet another acquisition, with all the financial, cultural and managerial angst that goes with it.

I remember (yes dear reader, because I was there) spending many of the early years of this century as part of the team that was charged with incorporating the old Southnews group of weekly newspapers in London and the Home Counties into Trinity Mirror’s southern business.

That October 2000 acquisition came with a £285m price tag for around 60 free and paid-for newspapers (no one bought websites then – don’t you remember the dotcom bubble?). The deal announced this week, in which Trinity Mirror gets the Manchester Evening News, the Reading Post and a stable of other regional titles and websites for less than a fifth of that price. The Southnews deal came back to bite Trinity Mirror, as the early noughties advertising slump forced it to post a considerable write-down against the acquisition just a few years later.

Of course, the very economic foundation of the regional newspaper industry has shifted irreversibly since then, so comparisons are probably unfair.

However, back to the key questions: what do GMG and Trinity Mirror get out of the deal?

For the latter, I think it’s pretty clear. With declining revenues and circulation, another round of consolidation is probably an inevitable strategy for the biggest groups, whose scale demands that de-duplicating resources and cutting costs are required to counter the exodus of readers and advertisers. There’s also a very handy strategic regional fit for the Manchester titles alongside Trinity’s existing Merseyside titles.

For GMG, though, it’s less clear. Does the disposal allow the group to concentrate on the march towards digital dominance spearheaded by the Guardian brand? Or perhaps GMG has just decided that the ‘cash cow’ role of the regionals simply doesn’t work any more in the new media economy, and it’s better off without the distraction.

Whatever the case, my money is on a rise in the number of deals amongst the major publishers following the TM-GMG shuffle, as more try to optimise the geographical ‘sense’ of their sometimes disparate and accidental portfolios.

Full post at this link…

GMG sells regional media business to Trinity Mirror for £44.8m

Months of speculation about the future of Guardian Media Group’s regional media business is over – the group has announced today it will sell GMG Regionals to Trinity Mirror for a total consideration of £44.8 million.

Within the regionals group MEN Media publishes 22 titles in the north west of England, including the flagship Manchester Evening News; while S&B Media publishes 10 titles in the south of England, including the Surrey Advertiser and Reading Post. Both will go to Trinity Mirror.

Manchester-based TV station Channel M and GMG Regionals Woking titles will not be part of the deal, which is expected to complete by 28 March.

The deal also sees departures for GMG Regionals chief executive Mark Dodson and MEN Media chief executive Ruth Spratt. More significantly it marks the sale of the Guardian’s Manchester roots, as the paper was started in the city on 5 May 1821.

More to follow from Journalism.co.uk.

Press Gazette: MEN shifts part-paid, part-free strategy

The Manchester Evening News is cutting down the number of days on which the paper will be freely available.

The MEN will now be available only as a paid-for edition on Monday to Wednesday and Saturdays. A mixture of free and paid-for copies will still be distributed on Thursdays and Fridays.

The paper began its experiment with distributing free copies in the city centre and paid-for editions in outer areas in April 2006. But uptake of the freebies has recently leapfrogged paid-for sales.

Full story at this link…

How-Do: Could GMG sell Manchester Evening News to Trinity Mirror?

How-Do.co.uk exclusively reported this morning that Guardian Media Group (GMG)  is “believed to be in talks” to sell the Manchester Evening News to Trinity Mirror [Update: and the rest of GMG Regional Media, according to the Telegraph].

How-Do, the north-west based media site, has few details to date but promises more soon. It had not managed to obtain comment from either group. It reported:

It is being suggested that GMG Regional Media is to be sold off in a bid to save jobs and continue with the Scott Trust’s overarching objective of protecting the interests of national paper the Guardian.

A figure of £40m has been mooted for the sale, but, again, at the time of writing this could not be confirmed.

Full story at this link…

Update: As noted in the comments, it was the Telegraph which ran the story first ten hours ago –  for some reason its story didn’t show in Google News or a Bing web search (although it does appear in Bing News search). Apologies for the error.

MEN: Manchester Evening News launches iPhone news app

The Manchester Evening News (MEN) has become one of the first UK regional titles to launch a news application for the iPhone.

The free-to-download app, which was launched on October 2, has already been downloaded 1,000 times, according to an MEN report.

MEN, which has a mobile site, will tap into smartphone users with the app and also encourage users to share news items on Twitter and Facebook.

A short video of the app, which was developed by Spreed Inc – who also created Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail’s iPhone app, can be seen below:

Full story at this link…