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City weekly editor reveals departure after job cuts announced

Stacey BarnfieldA weekly editor revealed he is quitting his role just 24 hours after his newspaper’s parent company announced plans for up to 25 job losses.

Stacey Barnfield, pictured left, is to leave the editorship of the Birmingham Post after two years in charge.

He revealed his decision on Friday, the day after the Post’s parent company Trinity Mirror announced it was putting 19 jobs at risk of redundancy in its Birmingham newsroom and a further six in Coventry.

Stacey’s position was not thought to be among those at risk and no date has yet been set for his departure.

During his time at the Post, he was responsible for launching the paper’s app and more than doubled its online audience in one year.

He also spearhead its ‘Hidden Spaces’ project, aimed at promoting rarely-seen Birmingham buildings through photographic supplements.

Marc Reeves, editor-in-chief, Trinity Mirror Midlands and himself a former Post editor, said: “Stacey has made an impact in all of his roles at the Birmingham Post and Mail.

“He was pivotal in the Mail’s evolution into an award-winning digital title, leading digital developments here when he was executive editor.

“As editor of the Birmingham Post, he took the title even further on the digital journey, launching the Birmingham Post app and more than doubling its online audience in a year.”

He added: “He goes with our very best wishes and thanks for all he has achieved over a great many years.”

Stacey started his newspaper career on the Solihull News in 1992 before joining the Sunday Mercury in 1997 as a sub-editor.

This was followed by a five-year spell on Trinity Mirror’s magazines division as design editor and then editor-in-chief, overseeing a portfolio of lifestyle and entertainments magazines and contract-published titles.

Stacey joined the Birmingham Mail as assistant editor in 2005 and was appointed executive editor three years later with a brief to help increase the newspaper’s digital readership.

He took up his current role in February 2013 , succeedingAlun Thorne in the editor’s chair.

12 comments

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  • June 8, 2015 at 8:36 am
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    “Thanks for all you’ve achieved, Stacey, door’s over there, and we’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything.” As indeed he doesn’t. The slaughter continues… what more will this week bring?

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  • June 8, 2015 at 9:14 am
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    This week will bring the latest sales figures, Mr Minim.

    The Birmingham Mail plunges below 30,000, and sweet sister Coventry Telegraph teeters on the brink of falling under 20,000.*

    We’re doomed! We’re doomed!

    *Unless, of course, you want to add digital sales which can be counted in their tens, not thousands.

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  • June 8, 2015 at 9:19 am
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    A significant loss to the BPM stable. A great guy and someone open to looking at things differently. Hope you’ve got something even better up your sleeve, Stace

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  • June 8, 2015 at 9:27 am
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    More ‘exciting’ new opportunities – with lots more to come/go. It’s excitement all the way to the Jobcentre.

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  • June 8, 2015 at 9:38 am
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    Ah, those sweet little digital sales, Slate Grey. We get figures accurate to the last penny with print sales (ads and circulation), yet digital is always lumped in with something else and never precisely identified. Let’s see the Big Five putting exact profit figures on their digital operations and then work out how we increase them. But it won’t happen…

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  • June 8, 2015 at 10:03 am
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    Couldn’t agree more ExBPM. One of the good guys and extremely talented. Have no doubt he will go on to bigger and better things. If only the same could be said for the ship he’s leaving.

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  • June 8, 2015 at 10:27 am
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    Stacey Barnfield is the most-skilled modern newspaper designer I know, and also one of those rare, genuinely nice guys. Not an iota of side, scorn or selfishness. I was chuffed to find myself working closely with him from 2005 to the end of 2009. He will very quickly land on his feet. Either various people will offer him roles or he will launch his own skills as a business. The Birmingham Post and Mail – as titles and staff – will miss him.

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  • June 8, 2015 at 10:45 am
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    Worked with him on a number of publications..Great vision..Probably not the end of the world for him, another, better, career outside of journalism no doubt awaits.

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  • June 8, 2015 at 11:51 am
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    Soon all that will be left in the trade will be the dross, the creche kids and those desperate to hang on for financial reasons.
    Most of the talent and experience has got out if they can, though there are still some stars surviving and working their templates off.

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  • June 8, 2015 at 3:43 pm
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    halfempty: Too long in tooth to be a crèche kid; too suave and accomplished to be dross (ahem); must be that flipping mortgage then. Trying to avoid direct sales involvement with The Big Issue if I can.

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  • June 8, 2015 at 7:36 pm
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    Phew, I thought there was a danger an announcement from the Post and Mail would go without us getting Steve Dyson’s view of the newsroom he helped lead into oblivion before bailing out leaving everyone else to wonder where all those readers had gone.

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  • June 9, 2015 at 1:04 pm
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    Dick …. You can’t ignore the trend which shows fewer people are reading newspapers and advertisers are spending less in them. Publishers can choose to ignore what is going on around them or try and make sure that revenue – aka your wages – online comes to us. Or take your third way of seeking to snark wherever you can while not accepting the reality of the situation.

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