The number of roles on a regional daily newspaper sports desk is to be cut by two due to staff leaving and not being replaced.
The Nottingham Post, which recently posted a 17.2pc year-on-year drop in circulation, is to see a reduction in sports staff from eight to six.
Sports reporter Matt Halfpenny will be the first to leave the Northcliffe-owned title today after landing a job with Bowles Sports Agency. A second journalist will retire at the end of the month.
Neither of the two staff will be replaced.
The move follows the non-replacement of two of the paper’s most senior journalists who recently left to take up editor’s jobs elsewhere.
Deputy editor Steven Fletcher left in November 2011 after landing the top job at the Lincolnshire Echo, while assistant editor Martin Biddle, whose post had been due to disappear in a restructure, was last month named as managing editor of Bahamas daily The Tribune.
This week Scunthorpe Telegraph editor Mel Cook was named as the Post’s new editor, taking over from Malcolm Pheby who retires in June.
In the latest ABC circulation figures released last month the Post recorded the biggest dip of any regional daily title in the country.
So, the response to a fall in circulation is to reduce editorial staffing in an area that is generally seen as key to maintaining readership. Many readers will tell you that sport is the only reason they buy a paper in the first place.
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Tog’s overview may have held water a decade or so ago but sadly not any more. Footie fans get all the latest club news/gossip from any number of websites and fan-zones.
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Real football fans don’t use the word “footie”.
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So how many World Cups has ‘oldfashioned’ attended? Or I’m guessing real footie fans don’t go to the World Cup? See you in Rio!
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The NUJ is holding a meeting next week for staff at the Nottingham Post to discuss the latest developments.
Diana Peasey, Chair, Nottingham NUJ branch
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Any paper that’s getting rid of Matt Halfpenny must not have a clue.
A really great sports journalist.
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To be fair Mark, the paper is not ‘getting rid of Matt Halfpenny.’ As the story makes clear, he has got a new job.
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a 17.2% drop in sales!!
The should sack all the staff get some who can do the job
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They certainly will not be offering a job to Dying breed, who can neither spell nor punctuate.
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Maybe, just maybe, we should stop being transfixed on the Internet.
Newspapers, both local and national, are suffering due to people clicking on websites. They forget that the world of newspapers supports thousands of jobs which are sadly shrinking by the day, as we’ve seen with the Lincoln Echo going from a daily to a weekly.
Others, no doubt, will soon follow.
Having spent many years in the industry, the whole thing makes me very unhappy.
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@MattHalfpenny: Good luck me ode tata. The Post won’t get another Stags reporter like thee, tha knows.
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