AddThis SmartLayers

Staff photographer cull extended to new JP division

The cull of staff photographers in Johnston Press has been extended to another of the company’s regional divisions, it has emerged.

Earlier this year HTFP revealed that the whole of the company’s Midlands region was to be left without any staff photographers following a review of how photographic content is generated, a move that was later extended to some JP titles in the North West.

Now it has emerged that all staff photographers at the JP-owned Morton Group of newspapers in Northern Ireland have either been made redundant or are facing the axe.

It is understood that the titles involved include the Larne Times, Ballymena Times, Portadown Times, Lurgan Mail and Banbridge Leader.

A source told HTFP that photographic staffers were offered enhanced voluntary redundancy on the full portfolio of around 16 titles, on March 28.

It understood seven or eight posts were affected and while most of these opted for redundancy, two have been left facing compulsory redundancy.

A spokesman for Johnston Press said: “We are currently in talks with a small number of staff whose jobs are at risk of redundancy. Discussions are ongoing with relevant parties.”

The staff facing compulsory redundancy are understood to work at the Larne Times and the Ballymena Times.

As was the case in the Midlands region, some of the photographers whose roles were axed have been offered freelance contracts with the papers.

However some are said to have have refused to sign it, claiming it does not allow for travelling expenses and includes a new single job payment of £12.50 labelled “derisory” by one source.

In January the company confirmed it would have no staff photographers for titles across its Midlands publishing division, which includes newspapers in Lincolnshire, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire.

There were understood to be fewer than ten compulsory redundancies among the photographic staff affected.

Johnston Press introduced an enhanced voluntary redundancy scheme for staff last autumn in a bid to help pay down its £320m debt.

The company’s annual results in March that the scheme contributed to a reduction in overall headcount of 609 over the course of 2013, not including staff who left in the early months of this year.

19 comments

You can follow all replies to this entry through the comments feed.
  • April 30, 2014 at 8:31 am
    Permalink

    Redundancy schemes for staff to “help pay down its £320m debt” but bonuses for management on £400,000. Pay a high salary for a tough job, fair enough, but to give up to 180% bonus to AH when staff are paying for the management errors of the past with their jobs is sickening.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 8:41 am
    Permalink

    All goes to help fund AH’s bonus, I suppose…Does all this JP stuff remind anyone else of David Brent’s bad news there’ll be job losses, good news I’m being promoted scene in The Office?

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 9:13 am
    Permalink

    REMEMBER : reporters are now using camera phones and compact cameras to help put photographers on the dole.
    When they come for them and they will, hey a blogger can do your jobs !
    No Sympathy, they looked after themselves and sacrificed photographers .
    Stealing copyright and pictures from twitter is the new press photography and offense which carries imprisonment, who says they have cleaned up the act when whole-scale theft is normal daily business practice.
    The race to the bottom continues.
    No content = no readers

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 9:45 am
    Permalink

    Hey John – you think a wet-behind-the-ears reporter on £13K is going to tell his/her editor to shove it when asked to take a pic with their phone?

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 10:01 am
    Permalink

    More journalistic vandalism perpetrated on the UK regional and weekly press

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 10:39 am
    Permalink

    John – I think it is unfair to blame reporters for the loss of staff photographers. I am sure they would much prefer not to take them and be able to concentrate on the job they are trained to do. I cannot blame the less creative (it would appear) designers in India for taking my job – it is management aiming for cost reduction targets to be able to get their bonuses that are squarely to blame for job losses. They have no lasting interest in the titles losing readers, due to poorer quality and content, because they will move on to other jobs with the bonuses the rest of JP staff can only dream of in the bank.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 10:45 am
    Permalink

    I have to side with Trunky on this.

    It’s awful that reporters are being asked to take photos on substandard equipment (and when they have no training, which impacts further on the quality of the shots unless you’re lucky enough to get a reporter with a decent eye).

    However, most of the few reporters left in the industry, especially those on rural weeklies, are young trainees who are in no position to argue – they have to just get on with it.

    It’s despicable and it’s driving quality down, but it’s the fault of the bean-counters – not nervous young things in their early twenties on a derisory salary and with little experience of the working world.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 10:52 am
    Permalink

    As a redundant JP photographer, having been given a freelance contract, the whole thing is a complete shambles, with a fast deteriorating quality of their newspapers. Best not to have anything more to do with them unless you are desperate, they are miserable to work for and it ruins your life….

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 11:36 am
    Permalink

    The only thing that can save the regional press now is for it to operate as a trust, a bit like the BBC. In this way money could be pumped into it for a professional operation (hyper local publications would remain untouched) and it wouldn’t totally rely on adverts to survive.
    Many people are concerned about what they see as a loss of Press freedom.
    But do today’s handful of monopoly publishers care about freedom? You have only to see how they treat their journalists for an answer to that.
    Most journalists have a half-baked idea that councillors and various busy-bodies would control things. This is because they haven’t taken the time to think things through. This need not necessarily be the case. The BBC works pretty well. It has its critics, but any big organisation like that will always have its critics (I think the Daily Mail would love to get its hands on the BBC’s business).
    Before you start to jeer ask yourself: What is the alternative?
    Britain pioneered regional journalism. Now it must show the future with a new form of publishing.
    For their part, journalists need to display the kind of maturity seen in other professions.
    The alternative is oblivion.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 1:25 pm
    Permalink

    JP management need to realise that their photographers are the most highly visible members of staff among the community their papers cover, often very well known ‘personalities’ in their area. Getting rid of them will do the paper no favours, and using mobile phone pics instead will further speed the decline of JP’s titles.
    JP management clearly have little interest in producing professional newspapers, only in how to make £320million asap. But as the same handful of top management will be wealthy men anyway from all these tatters, do they care??

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 3:17 pm
    Permalink

    What planet does AH live on? Did no-one ever tell him ‘faces sell papers’. Axing staff photographers is criminally insane. JP seems to have a death wish! The actions they are taking are driving weekly papers into the ground. Who wants to pay for a paper full of amateur and camera phone pictures? This will come back to bite them fatally!

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 3:44 pm
    Permalink

    If JP is handing out freelance contracts to newly redundant photographers, I urge them to be careful if they are thinking of signing. New contracts have been issued to JP freelance journalists and the terms are shocking – they take all copyright, but the freelance takes all responsibility for everything (and I mean everything).

    Anyone who has the choice shouldn’t be signing up to these terms. Sadly, people are naive or desperate enough to sign anyway, so they’ll get away with it.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • April 30, 2014 at 7:07 pm
    Permalink

    Oh good, more stunning images in their newspapers and on their websites, NOT! The last cull has resulted in hilarious images being published as so called news photos with no one seemingly being able to handle the image work properly resulting in some photos looking totally pixelated. In addition, their freelance contracts and expenses being paid are an absolute insult. Time for JP to cut their losses and sell off each newspaper to the highest bidder … small is the future!

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • May 1, 2014 at 6:59 am
    Permalink

    I have seen photos in JP’s newspapers where even a child do better!
    we have to remember bonuses. After all, the grim reaper has to be paid!

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • May 1, 2014 at 7:01 am
    Permalink

    More. I am going to cut out some photos from local papers, make a little card and send them to AH I don’t know how he can draw such a huge salary whilst allowing such rubbish to go to press!

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • May 1, 2014 at 10:25 am
    Permalink

    Unfortunately this story is all too common in our business now. These ‘suits’ are only interested in one thing… money. Therefore, the product withers and will eventually die.
    They seem to have no honour or loyalty to the companies they are suppose to be heading. If they did, they wouldn’t be sacking crucial, hard-working folk left, right and centre.
    ]It’s ironic that you very rarely hear of top management receiving the same treatment, the opposite in fact. Promotions all round.
    The fat cats keep getting fatter, whilst the people that actually know what they’re doing get it in the neck.

    As to JP’s freelance contract, I opened it, read it, laughed out loud, then binned it!

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • May 1, 2014 at 11:05 am
    Permalink

    What is the point in publishing newspapers filled with amateur content? JP are conning their readers and advertisers!

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • May 7, 2014 at 1:55 pm
    Permalink

    I thought the £20 single job fee offered in Midlands was an insult but £12.50 with no travel costs is obscene. Someone put a flyer through our door offering cleaning at £25 an hour — surely photographers are worth more than a half hour of cleaning.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)