Four senior editorial executives at a Midlands daily are having to compete for two roles as a result of a planned management restructure.

Managers at the Burton Mail want to introduce a more streamlined structure by combining a number of senior positions.

The four staff under threat include the deputy editor, Andy Parker, who ran the paper for eight months between the departure of Paul Hazeldine in January and the arrival of new editor Kevin Booth in September.

Between them, the two new senior roles to be created will encompass responsibility for news, production and the web.

Interviews for the two new roles are currently taking place and a decison on which of the four will be staying is to be announced shortly.

Steve Lowe, editor-in-chief of parent company Iliffe News and Media’s Central division which includes the Mail, said: “We are making some small management changes in order to create an intregrated newsroom.”

Comments

Mr Nobody (18/11/2009 10:45:04)
Nice to see bosses taking the brunt of cuts for a change!!

Jack (18/11/2009 16:39:19)
Mr Nobody – what very valid point you make. It is interesting just how few editors seem to have slashed from the top in these panic cuts. You only have to look at the staff lists on the websites of some of the papers to realise that in a lot of cases there are now more ‘editors’ than there are reporters.
The cuts have been very short sighted. Because any experienced business expert will tell you that making savings by cutting staff, leads to problems when the recovery starts. Companies with too few staff suffer as they struggle to keep up. It is quite a common problem at the end of recession for many companies to go out of business after managers got slash happy, thinking this would save money.
Sadly I fear this will happen to many of Britain’s many local and regional papers. And oddly the people that will have caused this problem – the editors, will get handsome pay offs for their work.

winkydewerde (19/11/2009 12:43:20)
I had the ‘pleasure’ of being chopped at Newsquest recently. Their management structure resembled an inverted triangle – and that was just the UK dimwits.

You what? (19/11/2009 15:58:25)
Since when was a deputy news editor classed as a “senior editorial executive”?? The mind boggles.

Kieran Fagan (20/11/2009 16:00:38)
I’d prefer there were no jobs lost. Gloating doesn’t help anyone.