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Jobs at risk as further Newsquest redundancies announced

NewsquestAround eight journalists are at believed to be at risk of redundancy under plans for further restructuring at a group of Newsquest titles.

Staff at Newsquest Wiltshire, which includes the Swindon Advertiser, Wiltshire Times and the Gazette and Herald, were informed of further job cuts at a meeting earlier this week.

Posts at risk are understood to be a weekly news editor role and a series of production roles, including those managing content at the daily and weekly titles.

It is understood that some of the roles under threat will be replaced with four newly-created content editor positions, along with a group deputy news editor post, meaning an overall headcount reduction of three.

The move comes after six redundancies among photographers and the picture desk at the Wiltshire titles were revealed last month.

Staff photographers were cut from six to two and the picture editor and picture desk assistant roles also disappeared.

Redundancies have also been announced at other Newsquest titles in Oxford, Bournemouth and Berkshire, leading the National Union of Journalists to describe it as “another summer of sackings” by the regional publisher.

The NUJ claimed that seven people were to be made redundant at the Oxford Mail and its sister weeklies, while two photographers’ jobs were at risk at the Bournemouth Echo.

Newsquest is also planning to dissolve its recently acquired production department in Reading, following its purchase of Romanes Media Group, with up to seven roles are thought to be at risk.

Newsquest Wiltshire managing director Chris Moore has so far not responded to a request for a comment.

20 comments

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  • July 24, 2015 at 7:50 am
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    When will they learn that ripping more journalists out of the business is not the answer. Show me a shred of evidence that this has worked elsewhere. Meanwhile the surplus to requirement ‘suits’ in peripheral roles will continue to be a drain on resources at the cost of approx x3 journalists per head. Expected better from the Editors of these titles and Henry Faure Walker.

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  • July 24, 2015 at 9:23 am
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    We don’t see any evidence that the editors want to sack staff – they want to retain staff and quality as far as I can tell – this is coming from higher up than that.

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  • July 24, 2015 at 9:30 am
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    Long John Silver is so right. Cuts in the industry always affect those with the relevant skills and experience, not the pen-pushers and mouse-clickers who proliferate on the margins and spend their time in endless meetings, presumably trying to find more journalists to sack. A competent chief executive with IT and marketing skills, and a few accounts and admin staff, would be enough to run a lean, profitable publishing house. There’s still money out there, so let’s spend it on people who know how to put news together.

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  • July 24, 2015 at 10:08 am
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    Yet another step in trying (and failing) to protect an ever diminishing profit margin. People have so much access to content now from a variety of sources, why would your average punter bother picking up a local newspaper or even looking at their appalling websites? In my experience most publishing centres were operating well in excess of 25% profit margin. Most if not all MD/Snr exec bonuses are based upon profit targets, this is the simple reason why there are so many cost cutting exercises dressed up as restructures. Apart from protecting margins, what benefit do these continuous restructures actually have?

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  • July 24, 2015 at 10:49 am
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    When will the blood-letting end? What can the NUJ do about it?
    How can we revive true journalism?
    A hat-trick of pointless questions for you to ponder……

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  • July 24, 2015 at 11:11 am
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    Worried Newsquester, you might be right, but in my opinion, they ain’t doing enough about it and not making the point I make with enough veracity. They are qualified to do so, all to often those making the decisions are not. Simple.

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  • July 24, 2015 at 11:25 am
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    I wouldn’t blame editors. They long ago ceased to have any real say and have been reduced to progress chasers in a word factory.
    JP and NQ seem to run from the centre nowadays, by people who appear to be up with the fairies and out of touch.
    When will this cull end though?

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  • July 24, 2015 at 11:52 am
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    Desperate times call for desperate measures. When the ship is sinking the captain has to decide who to throw overboard. Eventually the ship still goes under – captain and all.

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  • July 24, 2015 at 12:43 pm
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    Agreed Long John Silver, it’s the only business I can think of that works this way.

    Imagine you had a favourite restaurant where you went every week for steak, but one day you went in and they gave you a burger instead, not only that, but they’d actually put the price up. Would you keep going? Or would you find something else to eat?

    Imagine the manager then telling his staff ‘what can I say, it’s changing eating habits’, while the staff really know it’s because all their best chefs have been laid off in an effort to save a buck.

    No, it’s a product of rapidly declining quality at rapidly increasing prices, anyone who doesn’t bow out of that customer/seller relationship is an idiot, there’s no mystery here.

    Not only are they getting rid of hands on deck, but experienced people too, it’s a disaster but the people at the top don’t care – they’re short termists and they’re looking for their next well paid gig at Samsung or B&Q or wherever.

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  • July 24, 2015 at 12:58 pm
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    Now let’s see.

    1. People buy newspapers because they want to read the news
    2. By and large, people want to read quality, trustworthy news whether that is about politics, football or celebrities.
    3. The people who source the news are called journalists.
    4. By cutting journalists, the quality of the stories go down, the news becomes less worthy.
    5. Fewer people buy the papers.
    6. The newspaper industry reacts by increasing the price of the papers.
    7. Fewer people buy the papers.
    8. More journalists are cut and the quality of the stories go down and the news becomes less worthy.
    9. Management starts to look at futher ways to reducing the quality and sack editors.
    10. People give up and are forced a diet of i100 and Buzzfeed stories and think news is just a joke.

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  • July 24, 2015 at 1:01 pm
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    There is no future in dead tree journalism. Ergo, anyone involved in it should be looking for a new job. Now. Journalism is a wide and varied profession. There are transferable skills you can use to get into another part of it.

    Or, you can get out and use your skills for something else.

    Or you can learn some new skills and change careers.

    I have done one of the above. And I’m much happier. You will be too.

    Or you can just moan about declining standards, and about pen-pushers and bean counters not being targeted. While you’re doing that someone’s putting your name on a list for the next round of redundancies.

    Those, bar winning the lottery, are your options.

    People don’t want printed newspapers in general and printed local papers in particular. Circulations are falling and that’s only going to continue.

    Even if your local rag is shouting from the rooftops about the millions of unique users its website has, so what? They don’t make as much money as they need to from it and possibly they never will. And even if they do, they probably need even fewer people than they’ve got now to feed its voracious appetite. Your paper might be good. Your website might be good. Or they might both be appalling. Either way your days of being involved in them are pretty much over.

    Get over it and move on. Jobs change. Industries change. Ask a miner. It sucks but when there’s no room for you, there’s no room for you. It’s not personal. You may be really talented. But no one needs what you do any more. Go somewhere you’ll be appreciated.

    Just do me a favour: don’t go into PR after journalism. That’s just lame and unimaginative. You hate PRs, and now you’re considering being one? Please.

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  • July 24, 2015 at 1:15 pm
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    Will the last one leaving Newsquest . . . errr regional journalism . . . please turn out the lights!

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  • July 24, 2015 at 8:40 pm
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    It’s a fascinating time in content gathering (i think it was once called journalism) but must be frightening for people who hoped to have long term jobs

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  • July 25, 2015 at 1:21 am
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    They already cut 25 jobs from the Oxford hub and took on two content editors from those culled to work in Swindon – after moving them from Swindon to Oxford in the first place!! – and another three were left in Oxford. What else is there to cut?? Shambles.

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  • July 25, 2015 at 6:30 pm
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    Scroogequest shedding more jobs? Surely not!!!! As an ex-employee all I can say to everyone affected is this. There IS life after Newsques. If you’re lucky enough to get a redundancy pay-off – take it and run. If you’re not then there’s something else out there for you. One day the bigwigs will realise they got it wrong…

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  • July 27, 2015 at 8:59 am
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    People like “Ex-Newsquest hack” often remark that there are plenty of alternative types of job for journalists to go into if they so wish. But they are disappointingly vague when it comes to specifying precisely what types of jobs. I’m not trying to be clever here, I’d genuinely be interested in hearing alternative options from some of you. No doubt I’ll need to jump ship myself soon. But please don’t just say “PR” or “communications officer”!!

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  • July 27, 2015 at 9:15 am
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    Have to agree with Golam. The idea that there are lots of other opportunities is frankly rubbish. There aren’t. We are on the umpteenth round of redundancies and the opportunities are very few and far between for work of a similar nature. I got lucky after two years of trying… with redundo squandered on household bills.

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  • July 28, 2015 at 1:36 pm
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    It took me a year after joining JPs scrapheap but I eventually found an ideal job on a small indie paper. Modest but refreshing.

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