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Up to six jobs to go as publisher merges regional production operations

marc-reevesUp to six jobs are set to be lost in a move which will see the print production operations of seven daily newspapers across two regions merge.

Reach plc has announced the proposal to staff at its East and West Midlands dailies, just 48 hours after the company revealed both regions would now come under a single editor-in-chief in Marc Reeves.

Marc, pictured, who is taking on the expanded role after Derby Telegraph editor and East Midlands editor-in-chief Steve Hall decided to step down, announced the move to staff yesterday in a memo seen by HTFP.

He said he hoped the cuts, which are understood to mainly affect sub-editing roles, can be achieved entirely through voluntary redundancies.

Reach’s seven daily tiles in the Midlands are the Birmingham Mail, Burton Mail, Coventry Telegraph, Derby Telegraph, Leicester Mercury, Nottingham Post and Stoke-on-Trent daily The Sentinel.

Said Marc: “The proven success of regionalised print production, along with the investment in a common system across the Regionals division, has enabled us to further refine our workflows.

“We propose to take advantage of the new opportunities created by these changes to introduce one production model across Regionals editorial.

“Specifically, we are today proposing to combine the print production operations of our seven daily titles in the West and East Midlands into a single operation to make the most efficient use of our resources. This move will not necessarily require anybody to relocate.”

He added: “The proposed changes are expected to lead to the loss of six full-time equivalent roles in total across both regions.

“We hope to achieve these savings entirely through voluntary redundancies and have therefore invited print production colleagues who may be interested to come forward.”

Earlier this year Reach merged the print operations of the Manchester Evening News and Huddersfield Daily Examiner, in a restructure which the company said would involve a net loss of seven roles at the latter.

HTFP has approached Reach plc for further comment on the Midlands restructure.

15 comments

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  • November 15, 2018 at 8:41 am
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    I would imagine there will be a stampede of loyal employees looking to bail out of Reach, job cuts in the lead up to Christmas in a desperate attempt at balancing the books and save a few quid via offloading FTEs is a sure sign of more cuts to come.

    My good wishes to those affected.

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  • November 15, 2018 at 10:04 am
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    I’m sure there are more cuts coming Prospectus – maybe in the South West?
    Best of luck to all those affected.

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  • November 15, 2018 at 10:49 am
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    I think it’s inevitable @echoandthebunnymen
    and the SW is a good guess but other areas too will be ‘under review’ I’m sure, anywhere costs can be trimmed.
    Mergers and consolidations always result in the need for less staff and with the emphasis these days on cost savings and reducing overheads ( FTEs) rather than best practice and the best quality journalism,there’ll be more jobs lost sooner rather than later I fear.

    I’m also sure the usual suspect / company line toe-r will be along anytime soon to pooh pooh fears and resssure everyone it’s for the good of the business…

    Some things never change

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  • November 15, 2018 at 1:11 pm
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    The depressing thing about these stories is the number of job losses getting smaller and smaller as publishers find they have less and less fat to trim – they’re literally cutting to the bone.

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  • November 15, 2018 at 1:24 pm
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    Bob, you’ve just demonstrated the problems with current sub-editing and one of the many reasons why the above merging of print production teams is happening.

    The issue of using bail or bale, in this instance, varies from newspaper to newspaper. The Mail, BBC, Mirror and Telegraph use bail and The Guardian uses bale. Even if, technically, one is historically correct, it doesn’t matter as either is acceptable today. Just pick one and stick with it.

    Ask yourself: Will pointing this out affect the outcome? Would changing this sell more newspapers? Would one option generate more online readers than the other? The answer is no.

    I realised this, as a chief sub at the time, during an hour-long debate about the where the apostrophe belongs in Mother’s Day. It depressed me that subbing was becoming more about pedantry than improving the quality of the news. Although, that’s massively unfair to the countless good sub editors who’ve seen their roles reduced to little more than a proof-reading role and cutting content to fit boxes. It’s not all their fault.

    Being able to improve the quality and accuracy of a story is a much more valuable skill and far more important to the industry. If you just want to debate issues which don’t significantly impact upon a reader’s understanding or enjoyment of a story, sorry, but you’re surplus to requirements. Always have been really!

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  • November 15, 2018 at 2:26 pm
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    Methinks, however, that Mr Haywood has his tongue permanently planted in his cheek.

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  • November 15, 2018 at 3:57 pm
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    No tongue and no cheek, Echo – just trying to maintain standards. If we don’t do it, what hope is there for the general public? I feel like King Canute, though. I’ll just give up.

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  • November 15, 2018 at 4:54 pm
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    -Bob Heywood
    He was actually called ‘Cnut the Great’ also known as ‘Canute’ but hey,that’s just me being pedantic

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  • November 15, 2018 at 5:29 pm
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    ‘Said Marc: “The proven success of regionalised print production, along with the investment in a common system across the Regionals division, has enabled us to further refine our workflows.’

    Doncha just love BS management speak for redundancies and yet another business contraction?

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  • November 16, 2018 at 9:53 am
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    Prospectus. Though I agree with much of what you say, newspapers and websites should be written using correct punctuation, style and grammar.
    These are becoming less important I admit because for some reason the last few generations have become less literate, ie they do not value the English language. Sadly, this includes many hacks. The view seems to be if the story is good enough never mind the writing. The point they miss is that if writing is sloppy readers worry about the rest of it.
    There is no excuse for not trying to maintain standards of writing.

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  • November 16, 2018 at 11:58 am
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    “The proven success of regionalised print production…” would be all those Reach plc dailies with reduced pagination, vastly reduced story count and page after page of centrally-generated generic feature content, which few people now want to spend 80 or 90p on, would it not, Mr Reeves? Good luck with wrecking the remaining titles with that model, sir.
    Incidentally, Oliver, on my last paper, house style circumvented the apostrophe dilemma in the March maternal celebration event by calling it Mothering Sunday.

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  • November 16, 2018 at 1:25 pm
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    paperboy, as a general rule, I’m with you on the importance of standards. I can, however, forgive the occasional grammatical error if an article is written in an interesting and entertaining way and, of course, as long as it doesn’t impact upon my understanding of it. I’d prefer that over a perfectly-written, boring version of the same story any day of the week and so, I believe, would most paying readers.

    all subbed out, a good solution but just it’s a little too quaint for me. Mind you, it would have given me that hour of my life back! The other classic was Halloween or Hallowe’en? That one just gets even more complicated when you start to unravel it.

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  • November 16, 2018 at 5:10 pm
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    I thought Reach got rid of its subs a decade ago – certainly in the West Midlands – in the bad old days of Trinity Mirror when reporters basically subbed their own copy to fit a set template and even wrote their own headlines. I assume the affected roles are what they called multi-media desk editors, or something like that, which is basically what all the traditional news editors became as well as some former subs who were kept on to do layouts.

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