Four journalism jobs and three new roles are to be created in a restructure designed to focus more resources on communirty reporting.
Johnston Press has confirmed it is planning to undertake the changes in its Northern Ireland division which includes 14 weeklies and one daily title.
As a result, three reporting roles and one management role are at risk from among the JP’s editorial team at its weekly newspapers in the region which include the Ballymena Times, Antrim Times, Coleraine Time, Tyrone Times and Londonderry Sentinel.
However two new community roles are being created in the restructure, while a new reporter is also being sought for Belfast daily the News Letter.
As with JP titles on the British mainland, its Northern Ireland publishing unit has in recent years adopted the company’s ‘Newsroom of the Future’ strategy in recent years.
Under the initiative, journalists work across multiple titles within the same region while centralised hubs have been created created to cover areas such as community news and sport.
A JP spokesman said: “To better serve our readers across Northern Ireland, we are focusing more resource on our community reporting team, while also adding a reporter at the News Letter and creating a Northern Ireland Commercial Editor.
“This will mean redirecting a small amount of resource from other editorial areas within Northern Ireland, but an overall headcount reduction of just one.”
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JP should drop the title of being a publishing company and re-lsbel themselves as a re-structuring company. There is not a month goes by when changes are not made. Staff don’t know what’s happening from week to week. Their weekly newspapers are a pale shadow of their pre-JP days. Circulation isn’t falling, it’s being driven down by filling the papers with generic non-local rubbish and putting up prices. It seems the newspaper industry has been taken over by corporate raiders who are intent on dismantling it in favour of digital. However their dream is quickly a nightmare.
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What’s a ‘community’ reporter? Someone, perhaps, who doesn’t expect to be on the same lucrative pay scale (yes, sarcasm) as a ‘proper’ reporter?
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