Regional publisher Johnston Press has confirmed it plans to introduce two more centralised subbing hubs, this time at its North-East and South Yorkshire operations.

The move, which will lead to five job losses, will see the Sunderland Echo, Shields Gazette, Hartlepool Mail and various sister weeklies all subbed from a single office in Sunderland.

It follows the introduction of centralised subbing at JP’s operations in the Midlands, Northern Ireland and Lancashire earlier this year.

A consultation process with North-East staff began this week and is due to conclude at the end of the month.

Managing director Stuart Birkett said: “Following a detailed review of editorial production across Northeast Press, the company proposes that sub-editing for all its titles will be consolidated into Sunderland from offices in Hartlepool, South Shields, Alnwick, Morpeth and Whitley Bay.

“As a result of this proposal there will be a reduction of up to five roles from the editorial departments throughout the company.”

Similar proposals have been announced for JP’s South Yorkshire Newspapers division which also includes the Worksop Guardian, in Nottinghamshire

Managing director Paul Bentham said: “Following a detailed review of the South Yorkshire Newspapers editorial departments the company proposes to centralise the subbing activity from offices in Doncaster, Goole, Selby and Mexborough into Worksop. ”

“As a result of this proposal there will be an overall reduction of up to 1.75 full-time roles from various jobs within South Yorkshire Newspapers.”

Earlier this year the company created three central subbing hubs in Northampton, Peterborough and Milton Keynes to cover its Midlands and East Anglian titles, and two units in Blackpool and Preston covering its Central Lancashire newspapers.

Comments

Flabbergasted (17/07/2009 09:23:25)
The introduction of a centralised subbing hub in the East Midlands has been a disaster. Quality and brand identity have been compromised. It seems JP will never learn…

Johnston Stressed (17/07/2009 09:45:00)
Following a detailed review of Birkett and Bentham’s quotes, I propose to centralise the MD’ing in the North East and South Yorkshire at one office.
As a result of this proposal there will be a reduction in nonsensical centralising policies throughout the company.

hilary (17/07/2009 11:23:05)
This is beginning to look like centralisation for the sake of it, especially in South Yorkshire. Is all that upheaval worth it for the sake of 1.75 jobs? Quality and local knowledge will suffer for very little gain. There’s another agenda here.

JP Grind (17/07/2009 11:50:04)
If I published a false story, a poor court report which landed the paper in hot water or failed to live up to the standard required I would be quite rightly disciplined or even sacked.
The same rules should apply for the managing directors steering regional newspapers to ruin. Off you go please.

JPSub (20/07/2009 13:38:03)
Welcome to the soul-destroying misery that is central subbing.

FAST WOMAN (20/07/2009 15:02:29)
Centralised design hubs, newspapers without editors, mass generic content, bland websites that will never pay their way…. all part of a flawed business model.
Imagine a recession-hit
choccie bar maker facing lower profits. It might well have to turn out fewer products for a while – and this could have consequences for staff numbers. That’s business.
What it wouldn’t do is take all the sultanas out of the fruit and nut bar,try to charge more for it, and insist to customers who can easily go elsewhere, or give up chocolate, that they are still getting a great deal.
In the modern world, papers have gone from a near essential daily buy to a selective purchase.
So when number-crunching bosses chuck quality control and brand management out the window it shows how little they understand clever and niche marketing.
On a final point, I’m no longer finding HTTP’s ‘Friday Funnies’ collection of front page bloomers and website fiascos a good chuckle.
Five years ago you’d have put these rare howlers down to someone having been on the
sauce.
Now, I suspect, most of them are the results of barely
trained web monkeys or lost-the-plot ‘multimedia journalists’ throwing stuff at pages.

Mr Mobile (20/07/2009 15:43:20)
On the subject of Friday Funnies, have you noticed HTFP has run three this month……kinda bears out your point FAST WOMAN….that said, they are still hilarious when all is said and done!!!

Overworked (18/09/2009 09:40:31)
I work on a ‘hub’ and it the most stupid thing on the planet. Several jobs have been made redundant here and the jobs handed to the hub staff ie Newspaper sales went to Leeds but reception are getting the system to check balances – job not redundant then is it!!! Direct delivery went to Leeds but we still have to the papers – job also not redundant!! If the job is redundant; make Leeds do them – don’t hand it back to us. Also, has anybody heard that the Echo office is going to print the Yorkshire Post? Hmm