Seven new jobs are being created and six are being lost in the latest newsroom shake-up by publisher Trinity Mirror.
The changes affect the titles based at TM’s Media Wales division in Cardiff, including the South Wales Echo, Western Mail and Wales on Sunday.
Trinity Mirror says the plans are designed to “get journalists in the right places to cover the topics our audiences are interested in” as well as focusing on “digital acceleration”
It follows similar moves made by TM at its centres in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and North Wales.
The seven jobs being created in Cardiff include a what’s on writer covering Newport, multimedia journalists covering schools & parenting and court, and three digital sports writer roles.
They are all currently being advertised on HoldtheFrontPage.
A Trinity Mirror spokesman said: “In Cardiff there have been some changes to the newsroom as part of ongoing work to have the right resource in place to deliver news our audiences want, when they want it.
“As a result, seven new roles have been created, with six being made redundant. Those affected are in consultation.”
Earlier this month, members of the National Union of Journalists at the North Wales Daily Post voted to strike over plans which would see six jobs lost, with the same number of new roles created.
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This story will provoke all the usual “TM hitmen” responses here (or it would have done a few weeks ago) but the company is in a tough place. Print ad revenue fell 17% in the first six months of 2016 alone, and digital is not growing at anywhere near the rate to make up that dizzying decline, perhaps part of the reason for the 53% dive in share price this year. The hard numbers will be available on August 1, but percentage-wise they will probably mirror (pardon the pun) those in last year’s annual report – print about £460m, online roughly £43m. So, what’s Simon Fox and his board to do? Believe me, I feel the pain of those “in consultation” but initiatives like the digital newsroom have to be attempted because otherwise TM is just passively waiting for the tide to go out, leaving everyone stranded. The reason the initiative won’t work here is that digital simply does not generate enough cash to sustain a bloated corporation, with its endless layers of non-productive management. It may well work if the company split its regions into small, agile, fit-for-21st century purpose outfits and in a way the board should be planning the dismantling of the corporation if it is to survive.
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So what do you do – put everything into a drive to maintain the quite impressive £460m from print and hope it works, or put everything into an increasingly uncertain digital future and hope it works. Or do you use one platform to sell/support the other? That’s assuming the bosses don’t go with Mr Minim’s suggestion of breaking the corporation up in order to give themselves an even chance of survival.
Whatever the answer is – and it may well not be one of the above four – there’s going to be tears by Christmas. I’ll get my coat now…
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I’m trying to work out the maths for “seven jobs created – six go” or is it just a vain attempt at positive spin on a headline?
Oh, and does consultation mean the seven re-applying for the six new jobs?
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Needless to say a ‘digital sports writer’ earns around £5k less per year than a ‘sports writer’, based on the salary quoted in the advert.
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Harry Hinkins hits the nail on the head, Toggy. The new roles are digitally focused but poorly rewarded. ‘New’ journalism jobs seem on a par with the old filing clerk positions of yesteryear, badly paid and going nowhere. TM’s restructure is more about saving money (see my previous post) than a realistic tilt at saving the company, because it isn’t salvageable in its existing corporate form. If there is a solution it lies in something far more radical than just cutting costs (and quality).
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I doubt any of the people who were made redundant were interested in these new roles as they would have been offered them first. I was made redundant a few years ago and wasn’t interested in doing a similar role for a lot less money. I am quite happy freelancing, without any stress and working when I want. Who would choose to work for a local paper these days?
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