Journalists at Tindle newspapers in north London are striking over the declining quality of the nine newspapers written by just three news reporters.
They complain they cannot leave the office to cover court stories, council meetings and are delivering a poor product to readers.
They are saying “enough is enough” and downing tools for a full two weeks. Nine editorial staff will walk out from Tuesday.
Tindle has said it will aim to produce the Enfield papers during the strike. Father of the chapel and features editor of the north London papers Jonathan Lovett speculated that they would do this by asking staff from other regional centres to cover.
So are the striking Tindle nine bravely leading the way to stop “churnalism” and deliver a better quality product for readers or are they standing on a picket line for two weeks only to ask the impossible of a company which has been hit by declining sales and advertising?
And, of course, cuts and declining quality is not just happening at Tindle newspapers.
It’s not just Tindle’s arts pages that are cut back, reporters who are over worked and council meetings that are ignored.
The last three years have seen cuts in regional newspapers across the country.
Jobs have been lost, subs’ posts have disappeared, production has moved way beyond the area where the spellings of councillors’ names and villages are known, football reports have been written a long way from the pitch and change pages have been reduced.
So can the quality of regional newspapers be upheld by industrial action taken by the reporters who write them? We would like to know your opinions on this issue.