Three more editors are to leave Trinity Mirror after the publisher unveiled a restructure of its South East weeklies.
As previously reported, around 15 jobs were at risk at the company’s Essex, Kent and Surrey titles as a result of plans to create county-wide websites covering each of the three patches in place of the current newspaper companion sites.
Although all existing print titles will continue to be published, the plans also entailed a reduction in the number of individual title editors.
It has now been announced that Essex Chronicle editor Paul Dent Jones, above, Kent and Sussex Courier editor Roger Kasper, and Kent Regional News and Media senior editor Rebecca Smith are all leaving the business.
Their posts are being combined with those of other title editors in four newly-created ‘brands editor’ roles with responsibility for all print operations within their areas as well as the new county-wide websites.
It means Alan Woods, editor of the Brentwood Gazette, will now have additional responsibility for the Chronicle as brands editor, Essex.
In Kent, Luke Jacobs moves from the role of digital development editor, Kent Regional News and Media, to become brands editor, Kent.
And in Surrey, Surrey Mirror editor Deanne Blaylock becomes brands editor, Surrey while Andrew Worden, editor of the Croydon Advertiser, is named brands editor, Croydon.
Ceri Gould, recently appointed as editor-in-chief for the South East division, said: “I would like to warmly thank Roger, Rebecca and Paul for the important roles they have played in bringing the business to its current standing.
“The titles and sites they have edited are held in the highest regard and that is full credit to them.”
TM said in a statement that replacement of the multi-title web structure by key websites in Essex, Kent and Croydon will “support the business objective to increase audience growth significantly and allow the newsrooms to focus on delivering quality digital and print content.”
It said the brands editors will lead a digital-first strategy and will also be responsible for the print portfolio.
The moves bring to ten the number of editors who have left or are shortly due to leave TM in the recent round of restructures.
The others are: Paul Brackley (Cambridge News), Kevin Booth (Leicester Mercury), Neil White (Derby Telegraph), Dave Atkin (Scunthorpe Telegraph), Rob Stokes (Western Daily Press), Lynne Fernquest (Bath Chronicle) and John Butterworth (Black Country Bugle).
Five of the seven have been or are being replaced, with Gavin Thompson appointed as the new editor of the Western Daily Press last week and Steve Hall due to replace Neil at Derby later this month.
New editors for the Cambridge and Leicester titles are also to be appointed shortly while the company is currently advertising for a new editor for Bath.
The Kent and Essex titles were all previously part of Local World and were acquired by Trinity Mirror as part of its £220m takeover of the business last November.
In a trading update earlier this year, TM said it would be seeking up to £12m in “synergy savings” as a result of the acquisition.
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Inevitable synergy savings from Local World acquisition.
Brutal, but TM have to keep feeding cash to the pension fund, which is by far the biggest company liability. So think on all you hand wringers.
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Another day, another TM massacre.
We’re currently awaiting the TM assassins in Cambridge and expect it to be far bloodier than has been seen elsewhere.
But it’s all worth it just to see the senior managers pick up their bonuses having delivered yet another short-term, shortsighted strategy based on cost cutting.
Well done TM. True champions of the regional press.
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First TM invented the title “content editor” (I had always been under the impression that editors were in charge of content). But now they’ve gone one better “brand editor”.
Why don’t they fire the digital suits and management graduates and return to their core business – producing decent quality newspapers.
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TM remain very quiet about their pension liabilities. I’d want a lot more information if I worked for them.
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@sledge
No need to worry about TM’s pension pot if you work for them. Chances are you’ll only be there a few years at best…
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“..Ceri Gould….said: “I would like to warmly thank Roger, Rebecca and Paul for the important roles they have played in bringing the business to its current standing”
…and as a result your services are no longer requried
thats how the suits in charge reward those effort and achievement
editors across the uk, i fear your days are numbered as an “editorship” is no longer deemed a neccesary part of a digital media envorinment
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“The titles and sites they have edited are held in the highest regard and that is full credit to them” – but clearly not enough credit to prevent them being thrown onto the Trinity Mirror scrapheap.
Now Local World staff sadly realise what “synergy savings” mean in the world of TM – something its former journos have long known.
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Brand editor? Is that a new hybrid creature caught somewhere between marketing and journalism – certainly that seems to be the way things are going these days. Forget the news, that’s for yesterday’s papers – what we need more of today is branding!
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And er… they’ve got rid of the Bath Chronicle editor and are now advertising above for an editor for the Bath Chronicle!
Explanation anyone?
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‘Duck Editor’ seems more appropriate….
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Observer 50. Ah, yes. Content editors. JP have them too, but judging but the quality of content they are either not very good or too busy to do any editing. Junior reporter basics like tautology (example first ever) , poor grammar (the council are) passive writing (The cheque was presented by instead of XXX presented the cheque)lack of local knowledge, it’s all there to see in every weekly every week.
It doesn’t matter of course, I accept that. Low standards became acceptable a few years back and are now the norm.
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What a load of Kents.
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Jeez malcontent. I bet junior reporters don’t even know what tautology and passive writing mean. When I trained you were told stuff like that was important. If you forgot it a sub who loved English would soon remind you. If you went to an evening paper you got bawled out for writing badly. It was never perfect, but how sloppy and unprofessional it all is now.
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Does this mean that the “brands editor” for Kent will edit every single paper stretching from East Sussex (Kent and Sussex Courier) to Margate (Thanet Gazette)? Heck of a brief.
Look forward to the exciting developments in the years to come when we get “brands editor SE” who edits every single paper in the south east. Then “brands editor England”; “brands editor world”, etc.
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I’m now of the opinion TM only publishes these decisions purely to annoy HTFP readers, it’s like there’s some think tank pondering what’s the most heinous story they could put out just to wind up people who used to love papers.
‘Trinity Mirror has announced all sport staff will be replaced by Garth Crooks who will assume the role of digital shenanigans editor. Garth will report directly to Twitter’.
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malcontent and English lover, while I share your enthusiasm for maintaining standards, I’m afraid you’re missing the point about news today. I had my fair share of being berated by subs for grammatical errors and, in turn, I chastised others for the same because we were always told that it was important to our readers? Now, did it sell more newspapers? No and there’s the rub!
Your average reader doesn’t really care whether you use ‘the council is’ or ‘the council are’ and that’s been the downfall of subs in the digital era. Subs, and I was one of them, instead of picking up on factual errors and asking questions of reporters to fill large omissions in an article, largely became expensive proof-reading factories which improved the standard of English but did little to improve the quality of the stories.
With the immediacy in distribution and consumption of online news, readers are happy to forgive a few typos and grammatical errors as long as the content is factual, trustworthy and up-to-date. Minor errors can be corrected along the way.
In print, I’ve always respected the desire to get things right first time but, again, your typical reader will excuse a few errors as long as they don’t affect the facts and enjoyment of the story.
Given the cost of editors and subs, expecting fewer of them to make decisions across numerous titles is a given. I may appear to be playing devil’s advocate but I genuinely don’t believe that you don’t need an editor for every 40-page weekly when you have other editors overseeing 48-page dailies.
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Dave
Good points
Also subs made themselves very expensive when the NUJ did deals with publishers on so called new skills (using a computer keyboard) to get rid of compositors (the younger amongst you will need to google that)
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Lord save us from pedants. The only thing pedants excel at is pedantry.
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It’s important to maintain standards even if not all the public appreciate a journalists’ efforts. A paper with copy that is well researched, well written and grammatically correct along with well laid out, good pictures, is always going to appear more professional. Something that is worth one’s while reading and advertising in.
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It is very sad to see such a talented and likeable young editor as Paul Dent-Jones leaving the Essex Chronicle, which won Britain’s best weekly newspaper last year.
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In other news . . . . my Johnston Press share dropped in value again. Currently worth 29p. Zombie company almost in the hands of the administrators.
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‘ ..the brands editors will lead a digital-first strategy and will also be responsible for the print portfolio’
Good to see ‘the print portfolio’ trailing a second best to digital , I’m just surprised they didn’t add an ‘oh’ after ‘strategy’ in that sentence
And that folks, tells you all you need to know about the direction of the U.K. Regional press today,
At least they’ll make considerable cost savings on print and deliveries.
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At some stage, the suits and managers who are happy to focus their attention on culling and cutting, who are keen to build little empires for themselves in shaping this new digital-focused newsroom of the future, will have to stop ignoring the elephant in the room in the hope it goes away – how to make money from digital. The great unanswered question, the bad smell that will not go away. It cannot be ignored forever.
Re-organise all you want, shuffle the bits of (virtual) paper around the desk to your heart’s content, change the job titles, but the plain truth is none of these oh-so-wise wannabes is any nearer knowing the answer to the key question than they were when we had editors, reporters, photographers and subs rather than brand editors, content curators and UGC.
Over the past few years there have plenty striving to make their way up the ladder who have made us all busy fools, restructuring this, refocusing that, telling us this was the way to the Promised Land. By the time everyone realised it was a smokescreen, those responsible had jumped ship and set up camp elsewhere, finding a new audience for their ‘vision’.
It was, of course, a land they never wanted to reach for fear of finding out the truth. Their secret to their success was in never getting there, never being held accountable.
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If you talk about immigration you are a racist. If you talk about grammar, spelling, etc, you are a pedant.
Whatever happened to basic standards in both education and the world of journalism?
Speaking as one who has worked in both, I put it all down to sloppiness and a seemingly-inevitable trend of dumbing-down.
Malcontent is right when he (or she) says this all began years ago and nobody cares any more.
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It’s not my intention to make light of a situation where people are facing the loss of their jobs, but a few of the comments on here made me think of this: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/nobody-knows-what-digital-supposed-to-mean-20160614109525
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Brand Editor.
What does that mean? How, exactly, do you edit a brand?
Oh, hang on, I’ve got it…less staff, less journalism, more keywords on the website.
I look forward to more stories saying “Kim Kardashian/Ant & Dec/Wayne Rooney looking for house in Kent/Sussex/Essex”
Delete names/location as appropriate to suit your website. (That’s the editing bit)
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