A weekly’s offices are set to close after management decided they required too much work to bring up to scratch.
Staff at the Cumnock Chronicle will be relocated 30 miles away to the offices of the Ayrshire Weekly Press, in Ardrossan, in a move which will see two receptionists’ roles at risk of redundancy.
Chronicle editor Douglas Skelton is also set to leave the Romanes Media Group title at the end of the year to pursure a career in writing.
Group publishing director Keith McIntyre believes the move will alleviate pressure on stretched journalists.
He said: “Romanes Media Group do not have a policy of closing local offices, in fact this year alone we have opened new offices in Slough, Reading and Dunfermline.
“However circumstances in Cumnock were different.
“The building itself required a great deal of work to maintain it and our editorial team was struggling to cope with absences whether for holidays or sickness.
“As part of a larger editorial team in our Ardrossan office we will alleviate this pressure on our journalists.
“We are also currently looking at alternative means by which our reporters can still be on the ground in Cumnock and the surrounding villages.”
The company is now in consultation with its three part-time receptionists based in Ardrossan and Cumnock.
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Struggling to cope with sickness and holidays. Not enough staff then.
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I wish Douglas the best of luck in his writing.
This is a sad time for the staff and former journos at the paper.
Keith McIntyre is hilarious. “Romanes Media Group do not have a policy of closing local offices”
Someone should inform him that over the last 10 years Clyde and Forth shut the Largs office, Irvine office and Ayr office. Bloody fool.
One extra staff member would have saved Cumnock. How many weeklies get by with two reporters and an editor? Cumnock was the strongest title in the group, surely now set for free-fall.
Romanes Group are so short sighted that they can’t see past their portacabin “news hub” in Ardrossan.
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“Romanes Media Group do not have a policy of closing local offices.”
Surprised he could get through that one without laughing, after closing offices in Ayr, Largs and Irvine, then forcing all the staff into a portakabin with the Ardrossan and Herald staff for 5 years while reviewing “options” (one of which, as I recall, was to move the entire Ayr team down to Cumnock!)
Perhaps worse than this, however, is the suggestion that somehow this is going to aid the staffing crisis at Cumnock. As though the Ardrossan office has an abundance of extra staff hanging around to help out with absences, when in fact the staffing problems are just as pronounced. Expect any new hires will find a passage in their contracts about being forced at a moment’s notice to cover a desk on another paper for an area they have no clue about (and, given it’s 30 miles away, will likely NEVER visit) while simultaneously – if past form’s anything to go on – continuing to write stories for their own paper.
Oh the joys of doing the work or two or three reporters all for half a reporter’s salary! No wonder people can’t get out of there fast enough.
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Ben Bertolucci, the infamous portakabin was vacated about a year ago and staff are in rather nice new offices – fact checking wouldn’t go amiss
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Just been informed of the “plush new offices”. Still doesn’t beat a newsroom in it’s own patch, does it?
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*its
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Another blow to local journalism dealt once again by the most short-sighted management in Scottish if not UK newspapers.
Romanes Group took over the Ayr Advertiser, Scotland’s oldest weekly, which is no longer based in Ayr. The same goes for the Largs and Millport Weekly News. Now the Cumnock Chronicle is pulling out of Cumnock. The Paisley Gazette is no longer in Paisley – It’s actually based in Clydebank, two or three locall authority boundaries away on the opposite bank of the River Clyde.
This is effectively cheating readers out of local coverage of local affairs, the very heart and soul of ever weekly title.
Douglas Skelton is a great editor with vast experience, a really nice guy and by all accounts a very good boss. His staff and readers deserve better from a company making good profits but still slashing costs which will ultimately cost them massively in sales terms.
I am just glad Douglas is getting out now and wish him every success in his true vocation as a writer of fiction and non-fiction.
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Ben, shouldn’t you be more worried about the hordes of zombies piling up outside your offices? I’ve been hearing some seriously dodgy stuff about that local police chief of yours as well.
(late 90s gaming references FTW)
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