Around 40 journalist jobs are set to go at a daily newspaper and its sister titles under a voluntary redundancy programme, the National Union of Journalists claims.
Johnston Press launched its group-wide voluntary redundancy programme with enhanced terms in September, in a bid to further reduce its costs.
The deadline has now passed for applications and the NUJ claims around 40 editorial staff are set to go at The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News.
Scottish NUJ organiser Paul Holleran said there had initially been 80 applications for redundancy at the titles, and that the company was only approving around half of these.
He said this would reduce the editorial department by around 20pc and the union was having discussions with the company about who was going and the impact it would have.
Said Paul: “80 people applied for voluntary redundancy, so they are obviously not letting everyone go.
“We want to know about the people who remain and how they will cope with the workload and also what impact it will have on the paper.
“We don’t want circulation falling so it is about getting that balance and having a workload that people can cope with.
“We are working to try to minimise the disruption on the paper.”
NUJ Scotland tweeted yesterday: “Union reps working closely with JP management to discuss new ways of working and minimise the impact on Scotsman titles in face of 40 job cuts.”
HTFP reported yesterday on suggestions that The Scotsman could be “downsized” in the New Year.
Media commentator Roy Greenslade reported that the paper was to axe its weekend magazine, reduce pagination by up to eight pages a day, and move to a single edition structure from 6 January.
But Johnston Press did not confirm the reports and says the changes were only “options” currently under consideration.
The company has not yet responded to requests for a comment about the voluntary redundancies.
Tip. Iceberg.
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I see no-one’s bothered to cover the situation with reporters on Johnston’s local weeklies who were also subject to the offer. Don’t they matter too?
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Will the remaining staff receive the extra £500 that was first mentioned here a few months ago? Any news (unofficial, of course) on VR numbers at other centres? The tone from management is always so positive, “well done all” etc. because digital is 20% up against print. (But how low has the print advertising slumped?) JP appears only to thank or value sales staff. Good luck to those journalists going, especially after long service, but equally to those that remain.
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Correction to previous comment. Digital achieved “22% of print ad turnover”. Apologies.
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The heads of the company seem to be on some sort of kamikaze mission.
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So if 40 are going and that is 20% of Editorial, that means that there are currently 200 producing Two dailies with a combined sales of 60K a day and a sunday that sells 40K. That is a huge staff to sales ratio compared with the rest of JP. It’s sad that so many want to leave or have been asked to leave. I doubt that other regional papers that sell 30K a day have 40 staff !!
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I’m going to hand JP a pair of scissors and see what they can do with them….
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If you work for JP and your job title includes the word “photographer” take any VR offer you get.
In 6 months time it will not be voluntary.
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All the photographers and about a dozen journalists on the Star,Sheffield and weekly Telegraph have applied for redundancy; and apparently been accepted.
A source suggests that freelance contracts may be offered to former staff members after the cull……………………………
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