Five editorial roles are set to be lost at a regional daily newspaper after a call for voluntary redundancies received no takers.
Newsquest invited applications for voluntary redundancy at the former NWN Media titles, including North East Wales daily The Leader, which it purchased in 2017.
However no requests were forthcoming as a result of which the company says five roles are now at risk.
They include the two remaining staff photographer roles at the titles, two feature writer roles and the head of news.
The Leader’s Mold office
The other newspapers affected were The Leader’s fellow former NWN titles the North Wales Chronicle, The Pioneer, The Rhyl Journal and the Denbighshire Free Press.
A Newsquest spokesman said: “We continue to look at ways of working more efficiently across our business and have now decided to progress our proposal of centralising the Leader and Chester editorial functions.
“As we received no requests for voluntary redundancy, this has put the roles of two staff photographers, two feature writers and one head of news at risk.
“Whilst these potential redundancies are regrettable, it means we can continue to invest in frontline reporters which are central to the continued success of our local news brands.”
Since the Newsquest takeover of NWN, The Leader’s former owner, a number of staff cuts have taken place including around 20 job losses in the ad creation department after production was switched to Oxford.
The voluntary redundancy scheme was opened for staff in Chester and Mold earlier this year.
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“Whilst these potential redundancies are regrettable, it means we can continue to invest in frontline reporters which are central to the continued success of our local news brands.”
And how many senior staff are going to be left to provide advice to these frontline reporters and ensure they are writing to the correct style and going about things in the correct way? Very few. It’s hardly surprising that there’s been no takers for voluntary redundancy given it’s little more than a year since that process previously happened there, when a good number of long-serving and respected staff went. Coming back to make more significant cuts is just pure greed by Newsquest and they can have few complaints if sales figures continue to plummet as the quality of the publication declines further. It’s what happens when you remove your entire sub-editing and photographic teams. Getting rid of the features staff will make things even worse.
But still, as long as there’s a few more hits on the website from before they took over then the regional MD will no doubt be getting a pat on the back at Newsquest HQ. His job will presumably be immune to any threat of the axe, while many good people find themselves out of work.
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And what about the photographers? Do they not matter? As I’ve said before a newspaper without a staff photographer is like a football team without a goalkeeper. The tog will probably be offered a zero hours contract on buttons. The fools in charge of newspapers today have destroyed a viable industry with their greed in chasing the digital dragon without success. Yet still they try and talented staff are being thrown on the scrapheap.
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It does appear that Newsquest are using funding from the BBC, Facebook and Google to help them get rid of experienced journalists. They also appear to be tapping in to a slave culture with their so-called camera clubs and offering nothing in return for use of more slave content from social media contributors.
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