A regional daily is set to close its town centre office and base all its staff at a business park, according to the National Union of Journalists.
The NUJ claims the Huddersfield Daily Examiner is set to close its town centre office on John William Street on 17 May and base all its staff at the paper’s headquarters on a business park out of town in Bradley.
The union says this means there will be no place where members of the public can drop in to speak to staff and the chapel at the paper has written to editor Roy Wright with its concerns.
It is calling on the Trinity Mirror paper to retain a town centre presence so the Examiner does not become “out of sight and out of mind” to readers.
It is understood the office was just used for commercial purposes, without any journalists based there, and the closure is expected to lead to four people being made redundant, although these are not editorial roles.
Chris Morley, NUJ Northern and Midlands organiser, said: “While this planned closure does not directly affect NUJ members in terms of lost jobs, it does fill our members with real anxiety.
“Not only do they feel solidarity with those whose jobs have been put on the line, but they also fear that their readers will take this as a signal that Trinity Mirror is giving up on Huddersfield.
“No consultation is being done with the town or Examiner readers and if the company had the courage of its convictions this should be done before any final decision is taken.
“By swinging the axe in this way, there will be no company premises that the public can meet an Examiner journalist – or any other member of staff for that matter – face to face. This is yet another example of the disastrous prevailing cuts policy that is divorcing local and regional newspapers from their communities.
“Being out-of-town and out of the way with offices on industrial estates, these titles are also becoming out of reach and out of mind for their readers.”
The NUJ chapel’s letter to the editor said the paper’s headquarters in Bradley had no facilities for members of the public to speak to staff.
It also calls on other options for retaining a town centre presence to be considered, such as a unit in the market or another shop in the centre of Huddersfield.
The letter added: “If the John William Street office must close the chapel would like to see staff redeployed, either at new premises as suggested, or at the Bradley office. No face-to-face facilities for members of the public have been proposed by the company.
“This means people will inevitably now travel to the Bradley HQ where there are no staff available to help them. This will further alienate our declining readership and most likely hasten our demise. It is also likely to increase the pressure on an already over-stressed editorial department.
“This office has no facilities for the public but it could be adapted to do so at relatively low cost, while saving some face for a paper that appears to be abandoning its own town.”
Trinity Mirror has declined to comment.
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Well done Trinity Mirror. Once again setting the template for how not run newspapers.
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“Trinity Mirror has declined to comment.”
A newspaper (group) that expects other people to comment to it but it doesn’t believe it is accountable to its readers/wider public.
The NUJ is right on this one, not providing face to face facilities is outrageous. One of the big sellers/curiosities for newspapers is the hatched, matches, dispatched – how do people submit those? In a phone call to Canary Wharf?
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Not sure writing to the editor would help!
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Trinity is closing lots of offices promising that staff will be able to work remotely from their patch.
The reality is though that with cuts in staff numbers bosses are panicking about not having people in office churning so this never becomes a reality.
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The reason no staff were based in the office is because TM’s promises for ‘hot desks’ never materialised. There was to be capacity for reporters and advertising reps to work from the town centre office but TM failed to install any IT facilities for them to access systems.
The Examiner used to get readers calling into the office daily prior to the move to Bradley. Apparently it can be months between visits now.
Journalist and sub-editor numbers have been cut back on several occasions over the last three years – what was once a solid local paper is being, or has been, destroyed by TM.
Those left behind have to take the flack for TM managers’ poor decisions. Keep up the good work, they still turn out a decent, newsy paper every day.
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The location of bricks and mortar are not important *if* you put systems in place to allow reporters to engage with their communities directly.
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If no journalists were based there how does that impact on editorial engagement with the community? Sounds like it was a place for people to drop in personal ads (which I suspect hardly anyone did) so hardly doomsday for journalism in Huddersfield, is it?
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