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Pay increases totalling £500,000 for key Johnston Press staff

Ashley-Highfield2-e1401302531277 Pay increases totalling £500,000 are to be given out to Johnston Press journalists who have taken on “significant extra responsibility” during the company’s “newsroom of the future” restructure.

JP chief executive Ashley Highfield, pictured left, has announced the investment, which will affect more than 300 editorial staff at the company’s titles across the country.

The initiative, which is being introduced across the country, has seen reporters, management staff and editors reorganised and working on multiple newspapers within certain regions.

The salary increases will take place alongside the company’s local annual pay awards, to be received by all editorial staff.

The remuneration is set to take place over the coming weeks and months, as deployment of the restructure continues across the country.

The move was announced in an internal memo to staff by Ashley, which has been seen by HTFP.

He said: “This will impact to varying degrees across our publishing units, however we do expect more than 300 of our editorial team members to benefit from this over and above the annual pay award.

“Our plan is to implement these salary increases in the coming weeks and months as our deployment plans continue and we will be engaging at a local level to confirm the details.

“Not everyone, of course, will benefit directly from this investment. We are focussing it where we have identified a clear disparity between a journalist’s current pay and what we are expecting of them in the new structure.

“If you don’t receive an additional increase in this instance it doesn’t mean we don’t value your enormous hard work, the great job you are doing or the change you have taken on board.”

Ashley also used the announcement to thank staff taking part in the reorganisation, adding: “I have seen – first hand through visiting your offices in many cases – just how hard everyone in the new teams is working to make a huge success of this.

“Fundamentally it is about delivering the very best local journalism – and getting us back to the passionate, investigative, campaigning and entertaining content that makes us so valued in the local communities we serve.

“At the same time, it is designed to give our readers and local groups the best possible opportunity to share their news through our papers and websites.

“But change on this scale is never easy. While I am convinced it will make every journalist’s job more fulfilling and fun, in the short-term it’s extremely hard work – and I don’t underestimate it or take it for granted.”

21 comments

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  • June 1, 2015 at 10:15 am
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    Two sides to every coin. Paid with money saved by getting rid of many talented and experienced staff. But a positive move at last for those remaining and good news for some JP staff.
    No chance of re-opening those local offices then Ashers? I thought not.

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  • June 1, 2015 at 10:16 am
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    Still less than half his recent bonus, split between 300 people..

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  • June 1, 2015 at 10:29 am
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    I’m glad the wages I no longer earn are going to good use.

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  • June 1, 2015 at 11:03 am
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    He looks like John Stape from Corry. That’s all I have to add.

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  • June 1, 2015 at 11:07 am
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    The clue is in the reference to all that extra work, I’m afraid. This means editors & perhaps their deputies; the last few remaining down-table journalists can whistle, I fear, even if they are currently paid peanuts and even if because of redundancies & because of extra digital etc work they too are doing much more than they used to. Divide & rule, folks – pay the bosses well & the oiks can go hang!

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  • June 1, 2015 at 12:42 pm
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    Well done JP, Archant, over to you to show your gratitude for us who’ve not had a pay rise for years
    We all await your positive response

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  • June 1, 2015 at 1:08 pm
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    Nice one Asher (that’s what his mates call him). I’ve spent 37 years trying to make newspapers look rubbish, have failed miserably, and I’m being paid less than I was earning 20 years ago. Along comes a young gun like you, you destroy newspapers all over the country, and reap the rewards. You lucky sod. Nah, that’s not luck, that’s pure skill.

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  • June 1, 2015 at 2:58 pm
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    Wow. People being paid for taking on extra responsibility. How novel. Unfortunately every single member of JP staff has taken on a significantly increased workload in the past 4 years. Everyone should be recognised for that. What if my colleague sitting next to me gets a payrise and I don’t? That’s going to be fab for or team morale isn’t it? These payrises should be part of a transparent new pay structure and should be implemented across the board. Never gonna hapen.

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  • June 1, 2015 at 3:09 pm
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    Good post GladImOutOfit.

    The final straw for me at my weekly was when I found out the daily we were a vassal for had a desk full of freebies and offers, literally just dumped there. Our news editor was offered a cruise but couldn’t make it, he offered it to us but was told we couldn’t have it and it was instead offered around the office up at the daily. All I ever got in five years was a helicopter ride over a new Tesco distribution centre.

    Working in the media is like living in the Soviet Union, the people at the top are drinking black market Hennessy while you queue up for spuds.

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  • June 1, 2015 at 4:52 pm
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    Good luck to the staff getting their wage rise. They have earned it. Earned being the word. £500,000 between 300 equates to £1,666 before tax, even less when we are talking about “more than 300″. And can you please dig out of your picture files a headshot of “Ashley” not looking so smug? The present one upsets the servants.

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  • June 1, 2015 at 4:58 pm
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    I wouldn’t hold your breath Employee x , the top floor johnnies and yes men ad managers will be at the head of any queue for handouts I’m sure
    However I’m happy to be proven wrong

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  • June 1, 2015 at 6:57 pm
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    Come on Jeff, get the Archant chequebook out. There are many deserving causes in editorial.

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  • June 2, 2015 at 7:47 am
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    Crack open the Lambrini! (not!)
    I hope the staffers get enough extra to pay the private healthcare they need and the higher life insurance policies to cover the extra stress that no doubt will bring their deaths forward.
    I do hope every single editor and content editor has got their pay rise to make it all worthwhile.
    Meanwhile, the relentless juggernaut of Newsroom of the Future continues bringing carnage everywhere.
    It is a destructive diktat being carried out as a one-size-fits-all scheme that takes no account of local sensitivities, characteristics and market conditions, and one imposed on staff without any consultation whatsoever, to see how it might actually work.
    NOTF is certainly a stressful disaster at the cluster of papers I work for.
    Life in pre-NOTF times was far happier, especially with its simplified line of control and knowing you could write any story you want and put it on any page you want. It was certainly far more productive too.
    WE know the local people and they knew us, now they have to deal far more on some district office many miles away.
    Now we have dome sort of editorial apartheid with our communities teams and news teams and it’s especially hard on those papers that don’t even have a handful of staff to share between them.
    With the way Ashley is wrecking so much of the regional press, no doubt he will get his just rewards one day, from the main beneficiary of this- the BBC!

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  • June 2, 2015 at 8:20 am
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    Sadly this mans bonus which is richly undeserved is far more than this. His papers are dying a slow death. No wonder they pulled out of ABC up to 60% circulation declines hidden and poor cluttered websites delivering no value to advertisers whatsoever. No media organisation deals in cpm currency anymore, it’s all about share of voice and response.

    Sorry Ashley, the “newsroom of the future” is doomed to the past under your watch.

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