A regional daily is to lose its standalone website from Monday, with readers being redirected to its sister title’s online platform instead.
Trinity Mirror has revealed it will close Newcastle daily The Journal’s online channel TheJournal.co.uk and merge it with that of fellow city daily The Chronicle.
Readers will now be able access content from both newspapers, plus their Sunday Sun sister title, via the ChronicleLive website.
Announcing the move, Trinity Mirror pointed to the fact The Chronicle’s website had achieved around 25 times more traffic than The Journal’s during June.
The Journal has been without a separate title editor since Brian Aitkin’s departure before Christmas, with Chronicle editor Darren Thwaites now in overall control of both papers as editor-in-chief of Trinity Mirror’s North East titles.
Said Darren: “The time has come to add the weight of both our daily newspaper brands to the massive scale and strength of ChronicleLive.
“It means we can accelerate our position as the North East’s leading regional news, sport and entertainment provider, covering more subjects across a wider geography.
“We’ll no longer be competing against ourselves. Instead, we’ll be bringing the biggest possible audience to all our stories using the massive search and social strength of a single supersite.”
The addition of The Journal’s patch means that from Monday, ChronicleLive will include news from around the North East rather than focusing mainly on Newscastle.
It will now cover a patch from the Scottish border to Teesside, through Northumberland, Tyneside, Sunderland and Durham.
ChronicleLive will also include a business channel for the first time, run by The Journal’s business team headed by Graeme Whitfield.
The Journal’s own website will continue to exist solely as an archive.
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
“It means we’re… covering more subjects across a wider geography.” I just love it when people write clear and sensible English. To use “geography” instead of boring old “area” is a triumph worthy of our language’s most adept exponents. And how wide’s wide? World-wide, as in web?
Report this comment
Days must be numbered for print version or would make sense for a weekly paper on a Saturday with homes.
Report this comment
Oil and water, oil and water.
Report this comment
Why don’t they do the same with the Gazette in Middlesbrough and have one mega north east website full of great news stories such as “Aliens ate my parmo” and “Toon fans happy with manager”.
Another nail in The Journal’s coffin.
Report this comment
Bit worrying when editors can’t write clearly and concisely.
Report this comment
I an not surprised by this at all. What does surprise me is why Trinity Mirror continue with GazetteLive and will not merge them into a super site. It is the north east after all. I fear the printed edition of The Journal will be the first of the Trinity Mirror titles to be axed in the north east soon also.
Report this comment
totally ridiculous move. Two different papers with totally different audiences. A very sad day and probably a sign of things to come.
Report this comment
The Journal is the business friendly newspaper read by opinion formers while the Chronicle is sensational and read by opinion followers. The two are separate.
If I was to suggest anything, I would say syndicate both outlets stories on each site.
Totally agree that it looks like the Journal’s days are numbered.
Report this comment