Tag Archives: Tindle Newspapers

NUJ: Ray Tindle to meet with Parlimentary representatives over Enfield dispute

The situation at Tindle Newspapers in Enfield, where journalists have already taken industrial action in protest over a lack of staffing, remains tense. A ballot has been returned in favour of further strike action and journalists claim there has been no response from management from their first walk out.

So an announcement today, reported by the campaigning group of National Union of Journalist members on Twitter, that Sir Ray Tindle was to meet with the NUJ Parliamentary group on Tuesday next week, was welcomed by father of the chapel Jonathan Lovett.

 

There has not been confirmation of the meeting yet from Tindle headquarters, but Lovett told Journalism.co.uk it is a positive step as they decide about action in the near future.

They are meeting and asking him to explain the situation, why he is putting us in this situation and what he is going to do about it … We haven’t had a meeting as such with him so I took it as a positive. I think we can now have a reasonable discussion.

Related content:

Enfield nine in unanimous vote for further strike action

Trinity Mirror to cut 26 jobs as Newcastle Evening Chronicle shifts to single edition

Newsquest South London new four day strike announced

Debate: Will other reporters follow Tindle’s and strike over quality?

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.

Greenslade: Tindle to launch four ‘hyperlocal’ London papers

Sir Ray Tindle will reaffirm his commitment to the future of printed newspapers with the launch of four new weekly, local titles by his group.

The new papers will launch in London later today and underline his belief in a hyperlocal print product, as well as the group’s continued expansion during the recession.

Full post at this link…

Organ Grinder: Against the odds Tindle’s model for paid content is working

As local UK newspaper group Tindle Newspapers announced plans yesterday to introduce pay walls to around 40 of its websites, an experiment trialling the charging system on six of its titles was hailed a success by the publisher.

The system uses digital edition software PageSuite and interestingly enough charges the same price for the e-edition online as the print edition of a title.

“That runs counter to the conventional wisdom that reader expectations and the lower distribution costs of the internet mean online charging should represent a hefty discount on the price of the print product,” notes Chris Tryhorn.

Amongst the trial papers, 350-400 paying online readers signed up on the Tavistock Times’ site, compared with a circulation of 14,000, reports Tryhorn.

Against conventional wisdom, deceptively simple, but perhaps more in line with what readers are willing to pay for when it comes to local news?

Full post at this link…