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Union renews attack over chief executive's £600k salary

The National Union of Journalists has renewed its attack on the salary package for former Newsquest chief executive Paul Davidson after latest accounts showed he earned £610,458 in his final year.

Mr Davidson stepped down as day-to-day boss of the regional publisher in April but remains its chairman.

Details of his salary package were revealed in the annual account of Newsquest’s parent company Gannett, showing he received a salary increase of £53,000 or around 9.5pc in his final year.

The same set of figures showed Newsquest profits were down 11pc at £67.3m while overall revenues fell 5.4pc to stand at £288.6m.

According to the NUJ, the package made Mr Davidson the highest-paid UK regional newspaper executive.

It said his pay packet compares to the £500,000 salary paid out to Simon Fox, chief executive of Trinity Mirror, and £400,000 for Ashley Highfield, chief executive of Johnston Press.

However the NUJ claims that most staff pay across the group remains frozen with only one pay increase in the past six years.

Newsquest NUJ chapels are due to consider their response to the pay freeze at a meeting of reps in Manchester this weekend.

Chris Morley, Newsquest NUJ group chapel official, said: “The squeeze on living standards of our members in Newsquest has been harsh and brutal in recent years. It is breath-taking that the vast pay packet trousered by Paul Davidson year-in, year-out, could rise yet further during the year.

“His pay is equal to that of 25 typical Newsquest journalists and yet he has guided the company to lower profits and revenue for successive years.

“New chief executive, Henry Faure Walker, has a lot of ground to make up in restoring morale and confidence in management.

“The best way to start will be to make sure staff get a decent pay rise in in 2014. Our chapels will be reminding him of that very loudly, I’m sure.”

Nobody from Newsquest has so far responded to requests for a comment.

6 comments

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  • October 1, 2014 at 7:29 pm
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    No one can truly justify that sort of money_ except really important people who saves lives. But its hardly fair to criticise him for taking it. Honestly, wouldn’t you? After all there are sportsmen getting £300,000 week for not doing their jobs very well, a shameful indictment of our values.

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  • October 2, 2014 at 12:39 am
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    “His salary is equivalent to that of 25 typical Newsquest journalists”
    If only Chris. How many Newsquest journalists do you know earning in excess of £24k a year?

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  • October 2, 2014 at 9:59 am
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    Sharewatcher, sporting stars command high wages because, like the rest of us, they are subject to market forces. If they perform well, they get paid well. If they don’t, they’re out or their value falls accordingly. That’s one of the foundation blocks of capitalism. Sportsmen and women attract more than their fare share of criticism purely and simply because they are usually ordinary working-class people who happen to achieve success through skill, as opposed to privileged people who achieve success largely because of birth and their connections. That’s how Britain works.
    But Paul Davidson is above all this. He is in a position where he can exert huge influence on his remunerations, not because of his business skills – which in my experience as a former Newsquest employee seem pretty limited – but because of his position. Like the bankers, he can do what he likes irrespective of how Newsquest performs. That is wrong. And it will stay wrong until Newsquest employees (and the editors who criticise him behind his back) do something about it.

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  • October 2, 2014 at 10:58 am
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    A fifty grand a year increase for leading the Group to some of the worst circulation figures the industry has ever seen, for master-minding a Newsquest PR strategy that is nothing short of shocking and for keeping the lowest profile of any senior figure in the regional press. Disgraceful.

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  • October 2, 2014 at 11:40 am
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    His salary increase alone is worth two-and-a-half times my annual salary as a senior NQ journo!

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