A new paper which is set to be Britain’s biggest free weekly has hit the streets today.
Trinity Mirror-owned MEN Media has launched the Manchester Weekly News to replace the Stockport Times, Wilmslow Express and the Advertiser series in Tameside, Salford, Oldham and Trafford.
The new paper is being delivered to more than 265,000 homes across Greater Manchester from today.
It has been localised into eight editions – Salford, Tameside & Oldham, Stockport East, Stockport West, South Manchester, Sale & Altrincham, Stretford & Urmston, and Wilmslow.
The changes led to the loss of nine jobs, although the creation of new digital roles by publisher Trinity Mirror meant there was no net loss of jobs overall.
Editor-in-chief Rob Irvine said: “The Manchester Weekly News serves a hugely diverse patch and has managed to capture the essence of each discrete area whilst recognising how issues and events across Greater Manchester affect everyone.
“It’s a significant statement of how MEN Media continues to serve its audience across all platforms.
“The Manchester Evening News has always been a friend dropping in. Now there’s another friend which has dropped into our customers’ homes.”
The new title features local and community news plus with important stories from around the region, City Life pages with previews of shows and listings of events and sports coverage from the MEN’s football writers.
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So i’ve read; 9 jobs went and new digital ones created. Fair enough, but those jobs were probably decent reporters, who have now been hung to dry updating twitter feeds, facebook status’, copying copy onto websites, collating pictures for galleries, requesting photo consents from twitter posts by readers. Trust me, I’ve seen great journos reduced to these content curators. Quite sad to be honest. And in no way progressive in terms of journalism.
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Heavens that is a boring pic on the puff story for cops. Must do better on the visual front but good luck to it.
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As a regular reader of the tameside advertiser enjoying all whats newsworthy in the region and especially the local football coverage. Now we get the manchester weekly news with only football stories on utd and city . Not happy. Papers in the bin.
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Rebranded with probably less change pages, or poorer content with 9 less people. As with most freebies, they are not a priority for the staff who have to produce a daily, they are a pain in the backside
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As a former editor of some of the now-defunct titles I have to say the Wilmslow snobs won’t want news from the other side of the tracks in unposh parts of Manc. This new freebie launch doesn’t make sense.
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That front page of the April 2 South Manchester edition is boring beyond belief. Sadly I can understand the reason for a blatant PR puff for the infamous GMP. To provide any sort of front pages for all these editions there will be a reliance on publicity handouts from the cops, councils, health service, charities and any organisation which appoints a professional or amateur publicist — so best keep in with them from day one. This will be yet another example of the news agenda being set by the PR industry. My guess is that the majority of copies will head straight for the recycling bins.
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