A veteran reporter who chalked up more than 1,000 front page leads during a 28-year career with a daily newspaper has been axed in a recent jobs cull.

Harry Walton, left, was the longest serving reporter at the Dorset Echo having initially joined the paper in 1980.

But he left on Christmas Eve as part of a round of cost-cutting imposed by parent company Newsquest Dorset.

Harry, who celebrated his 1,000th front page lead in 2006, was one of a number of journalists to lose their jobs at the Weymouth daily and its sister title the Bournemouth Echo.

No-one from Newsquest Dorset or the company’s national headquarters in Surrey has been prepared to comment on the redundancies, which have been under discussion at the two centres for a number of weeks.

However HoldtheFrontPage has been contacted about the departures by several current and former staff of both Echo titles.

As well as Harry, four sub-editors, a news editor, a photographer and a features writer are understood to have gone.

One insider said: “Their last working day was Christmas Eve which was very emotional.”

The moves are the latest in a series of cutbacks at Newsquest centres across the UK in what appears to be a concerted cost-cutting exercise.

In the run-up to Christmas, the company unveiled plans to axe editorial posts at its centres in Glasgow, Darlington, Bradford, Hereford, Worcestershire, Wiltshire and West Wales.

The company also announced plans to close eleven titles in the North West while last week the cull continued with the loss of 14 posts in Colchester.

Newsquest’s parent company, US-based Gannett, announced in October that it planned to reduce its workforce by 10pc worldwide.

Comments

William Barnes (12/01/2009 07:16:23)
It’s a tragedy that Harry, Peter and others have gone. The paper is poorer becuase of it and many fear for the eventual amalgamation with the Bournemouth Echo. To say that rural Dorset and Bournemouth and Poole have enough in common with rural Dorset to bind them together is a nonsense.

Mike Fisher (12/01/2009 08:07:40)
Great shame the likes of Harry and news editor Paul Thomas have gone. Classic case of getting rid of the experienced few who, rightly, earned a bit more than the the youngsters. Still, you’re best out of it guys. The Dorset Echo, with its dreadful news coverage and appalling sports pages, will soon be no more.

A Nonny Mouse (12/01/2009 09:44:04)
Newsquest is going to have no staff left at this rate.

Mary Griffin (12/01/2009 11:36:02)
I’m lucky enough to have learnt the tricks of the trade from Harry Walton, Paul Thomas and other newshounds at this lively little Dorset daily.
It pains me to see today’s trainees are mostly left to learn from one another. And what future can cub reporters imagine when they see long-serving staff being given the shove?
Unless newspapers start to value the experienced members of their newsrooms it will become a case of the blind leading the blind and the concept of quality in local news will be lost.
We salute you Mr Walton, you who have braved trampolines and big cat hunts all in the name of local news.

Michael Woods (12/01/2009 12:00:45)
I edited the Echo from 1984 to 1996 and remember the days when people queued at the town centre office to buy it moments after the first edition rolled off the press(yes, the press was on the same premises). It then had one of the best sales records of any UK regional daily/evening paper — mainly due to an incredibly hard-working and devoted staff led by stalwarts such as Paul Thomas and Harry Walton. If Newsquest’s hidden agenda is to kill the title I congratulate them. Sacking such people is precisely the way to do it.

Newquest Insider (12/01/2009 12:23:35)
Yes the title’s being killed. I’ve been told as much my a very senior source. Anyone thinking otherwise – well it’s time to face up to reality. Your editor and GM saw it coming not so long ago, didn’t they?!

Laura Williams (12/01/2009 12:28:52)
Another prime example of local newspapers killing themselves. Surely, someone with three decades worth of experience, local knowledge and contacts is worth two or three trainees or churnalists – copying and pasting press releases in a bid to fill pages.
I too cut my journo teeth at the Dorset Echo. Harry and Paul were the heart of the paper for so many years. I fear this marks the beginning of the end for the Dorset Echo. A very sad time indeed.

John (12/01/2009 12:42:38)
Guys, we have to get real! I didn’t know these people so I can’t comment on them as professionals. BUT what I can say is we are in the middle of the worst economic crisis in 80 years. Do you really expect no one to lose their jobs!? We all have to take a reality check and accept most people don’t give a f*** about local papers. Advertisers are pulling out and readers are going elsewhere.
Get out while you can. I’m planning to do a PGCE in September – it will offer me a better future than this.

Ivy Likes (12/01/2009 12:49:31)
Patronising prat

Kim (12/01/2009 13:14:23)
Those who can’t, teach.

Ivy Likes (12/01/2009 13:54:29)
Just to correct the mistakes in this news piece, there were far more than eight editorial redundancies, eight just at Weymouth.
Furthermore, there were not ‘a number of weeks discussion’.
The targeted staff were, cruelly, given less than a week’s notice.
And, yes, it looks like Weymouth will be swallowed up by Bournemouth, despite ‘Dorset editor-in-chief’ Neal Butterworth’s assurances – there were more sackings at Weymouth than at his own Bournemouth centre.

Rob (12/01/2009 14:02:54)
No offence, but the content of the Dorset Echo is hardly helping. It’s terrible. As a rival reporter, I used to pick it up and cringe at the number of scoops they’d had oover me. These days it’s just a home for press releases. Joint editor in chief, joint news and sports editors on their way. RIP Dorset Echo

Ivy Likes (12/01/2009 14:13:56)
“As a rival reporter, I used to pick it up and cringe at the number of scoops they’d had oover me” (sic).
No offence Rob, but you obviously work for the Bournemouth Echo!

Tony (12/01/2009 14:22:58)
I have just met the new editor of a local paper who delighted in telling me that a couple of years ago he delivered beefburgers to fast-food shops in the district and fancied a change because he liked writing! Fat chance we have of keeping any kind of professionalism in journalism when managements will pull anyone from the streets and give them a title. Are there any jobs for us hacks sweeping the streets?!

Mike Phelan (12/01/2009 14:33:10)
This was a sad time indeed – I also lost my job as deputy chief sub-editor of the Dorset Echo, finishing on Christmas Eve.
Now I’m looking firmly to the future -and I’m in the market for fresh opportunities.
If anyone wants to consider employing a journalist with 36 years’ all-round experience, from reporter to sub-editor across a wide range of media, contact me.
I have also worked successfully as a crossword and word puzzle compiler and I can take a decent picture.
Email me at [email protected]
Mike Phelan

John (12/01/2009 15:14:40)
“Patronising prat”
Ivy now you’re letting yourself down. What I said is true and you know it. I can understand – we’re all frustrated! I went travelling and couldn’t get a senior reporter job when I got back.
We must all accept while other industries will pick up b
ack where they were after this recession, local papers may never get back.
And to the girl who said “can’t do teach” – are you just jealous because you’re too old and stuck in your ways to start a new career by any chance?

Fast Woman (12/01/2009 15:36:52)
Oh John…
“because you’re TOO OLD (my caps) and stuck in your ways to start a new career by any chance?”
Now that IS patronising.
Trust me, I’ve met more Generation X people’stuck in their ways’ than resilient, resourceful and sometimes downright sneaky older journalists.
When it comes to ducking and diving, trying new careers and gambling with the future, some of us have great track records.
What’s more, we’ve spent many more years learning to survive on low salaries, have had kids (if we wanted them), perhaps paid off mortgages and have no student loans.
Watch us go, sweetheart.

Former Southern Newspapers’ trainee (12/01/2009 17:12:06)
I was seconded to the Dorset Echo during my NCE training and worked with Paul Thomas and Harry Walton.
Both are true newsmen and, therefore, not the sort of people Newsquest wishes to employ – they are too experienced, too knowledgeable and too expensive.
Better for the balance sheet to employ a couple of trainees.
Dorset Echo readers can now look forward to many more press releases instead of properly-sourced and researched news stories.
It’s just so sad what is happening to this industry.
Do readers notice or care?
I am glad I learned the craft from people like Harry.

Thomas Hardy (12/01/2009 17:17:19)
Sad, sad, very sad. The Dorset Echo – a once excellent ‘local’ newspaper in the best sense of the word – run down and now gutted by Newsquest. I trust the Gannett shareholders are pleased. Good luck to Harry, Paul Thomas and the others who have been made redundant. I fear the worst for the Dorset Echo, the amount of news content these days is terrible, while the sports pages nowadays appear to be re-hased press releases. Not too long ago, the Echo had a strong, solid product. Now it is just a shadow of its former self. RIP Echo.

Newshound (12/01/2009 19:11:47)
What we really need to get angry about is the NUJ’s total failure to organise any sort of national action to protect jobs. At a local level, FoCs work their socks off up and down the country out of the goodness of their hearts and yet the paid officials in London do what? The last rubbish newsletter I had from the national NUJ included info about journalists abroad. Forgive me for not being particularly interested in their plight, but I’m more interested at the moment in whether my colleagues and I will still have jobs in three months time. At the end of all this the NUJ may have so few members it will not be viable as so many of us have been axed. I just can’t see what we are paying these national officers for!

Anna Jenkins (12/01/2009 19:49:44)
I too was privileged to work with Harry, Paul and other members of the Dorset Echo team who lost their jobs. To answer John’s point: I think we all understand that a recession will bring casualties. But a management decision to axe some of the most experienced members of a team a week before Christmas is both dumb and downright cruel. The problem with local newspapers isn’t lack of interest from readers or advertisers, but poor quality senior management.

Newsage Hack (12/01/2009 19:58:39)
come off it guys press releases are an absolute god send! I know this may offend some of you ‘purists’ but who really has the time to be out getting their own stories all day long. our paper has about 35-40 pages to fill each week with just 5 editorial staff. how would we do that each week without press releases – taking to the streets is all very well and good back in the old days of the village policeman on his bicycle. but today we need about 7 new stories on the website each day and i can’t afford to be talking to mrs goggins for four hours each day about her local post office taking a dive.
i get paid £14k a year and i am not going to slog my guts out for anyone on that kind of money.

Dave B (12/01/2009 20:50:13)
Trust Thomas Hardy to write common sense! Agree with everything you’ve said. Sad that things like the cost of Weymouth Pavilion will now go unquestioned without the likes of Paul and Harry at the Echo. And do you really think Weymouth FC would have got away with shafting their supporters the way they have had a proper sports reporter like Paul Baker still been covering the club. These and others lost to the Echo will signal the end. RIP indeed

Melissa (12/01/2009 20:59:06)
Shame indeed. I think senior management are trying to create a situation where having a daily newspaper in the area isn’t viable anymore, because the readers aren’t there. That the readers stopped buying the paper because all the experienced reporters have gone is by-the-by.
Let’s not forget that the Echo’s MD before the last was brought in to turn the Echo into a weekly. That never happened then but I give it six months.

John (12/01/2009 23:42:10)
Fast Woman, maybe it was a touch patronising, I apologise. I really just think it would be better for all of us to accept that these cuts are going to happen. No amount of complaining or striking is going to help or stop redundancies and paper closures.
I wish Harry and everyone else affected all the best in their futures.

John Stewart (13/01/2009 02:00:31)
As the story points out, Gannett and Newsquest are doing the same sort of thing elsewhere.
A friend who works in Brighton told me they’ve made their deputy editor redundant.
Unusually, he didn’t only know what made a story and how to write a decent headline, he was also a good manager and actually had a really deep-rooted local knowledge.
Don’t suppose that counts for anything in Newsquest or the likes of Johnston Press.
They’ve cheapened good papers so much, it’s no surprise their sales have plummeted.
Much as people sneer at the The Sun and Daily Mail, at least they spend money on journalists and journalism.
As a result, they have plenty of readers, and even in these dire times they have plenty of advertising.
Wonder if the top bananas at Gannett have drawn any lessons from that.
Doubt it, their style of running things is hardly tops, just bananas.

F. Johnston (13/01/2009 10:43:11)
I don’t blame Newsage Hack for not wanting to slog his/her guts out for £14,000, but what an indictment on the wreckage of our industry. Recycling press releases for a pittance is no good for the readers, the cannon-fodder ‘reporters’ who have to do it or, ultimately, the greedy companies who preside over it. You’re part of the problem Newsage, maybe it’s time to find something better to do with your time.

Laura (13/01/2009 11:11:18)
Well said F.Johnston. Newsage is exactly the type of sponge Newsquest bosses like. Trainees who lap up low pay in return for turning around press releases. Youn amateurs who don’t question anything – especially they’re low pay and complete lack of job satisfaction. Surely, the nature of journalism is to be curious and want to find out things for yourself rather than being spoon fed PR tripe? Local journalism may well be nearing the end but it’s not just profit-mad bosses who are killing it, it’s trainee journalists who don’t have the thirst for uncovering the truth and making councils, courts and emergency services accountable for their actions. Maybe I’m being idelistic in my assesment of local journalism but I for one think it’s something worth fighting for and will continue to do so until the presses stop rolling.

Laura (13/01/2009 11:13:02)
Oops, good job I’m not a sub. I meant “Young” and “their” not they’re. Slap my wrist!

simon (14/01/2009 11:54:50)
Three important points well made in the comments I’ve seen about the sad demise of the Dorset Echo and it’s key staff, which I’d like to say is all too familar to those on national newspapers too. Poor people management, poor union and lack of interest in good newspaper stories. The apathy in all three cases is
truly alarming. Everyone’s too busy chasing the short- term fix instead of building something readers and journos alike can believe in.

The Wanderer (15/01/2009 08:51:08)
Isn’t it amazing? The sailing leg of the 2012 Olympics is due to take place at Weymouth and Portland and Newsquest seems hell-bent on closing down the paper that could give it the best local coverage. Is this just shortsightedness, or what?
I worked on the good old DEE in the years before Harry’s and Paul’s arrivals; it was a busy, buzzing, newsy paper and though such gibes as ‘Echo, Echo that merry note, with last week’s news stuck in its throat’ had a measure of truth, nonetheless all the news was there – sometimes covered in considerable detail – and always. Like Emily, I found ‘I’m from the Echo’ was a passport to some wonderful stories and occasions. The Dorset Evening Echo was, and should still be, a little treasure. This is so sad – so sad, and bad.
Colin Macbeth

Catherine (19/01/2009 14:55:02)
Yep. I trained at the DEE too and since those days in the 90s I have told trainees how lucky I was to learn the ropes there. You had the chance to cover court, council and chat with locals from all walks of life around the harbourside to gather your off-diary stories. Sadly those days of proper reporting must be long gone as they are at other Newsquest titles as a skeleton staff means press releases and reaction to items sent in rather than investigations and criticism.
Sad days indeed.

Emma (14/04/2009 18:47:54)
I have read most of these comments and I was upset to read Newsage Hack’s comments about modern journalism being all about filling the paper with press releases.
Honestly, I cannot believe you said they are a ‘Godsend’ and that you are not going to slog your guts out for 14k a year.
May I please have your job?
I consider journalism a noble, worthy career and all I want to do is slog my guts out getting original stories day in day out. I don’t like to use press releases at all if I can help it and aim to turn in 7 or 8 good pieces of original copy every day.
And yet I am finding it hard to get a job.
You obviously have no respect for the job you are so lucky to be in or any appreciation for what you have.
I take pride in knowing local shop owners and business people by name and love that part of my job.
I mean no offence but I think journalism may not be the best career for you.