Herald Group Announces Further Job Cuts
02/05/2008
Union officials were informed yesterday lunchtime of the decision, which management says is down to declining advertising revenue and an expected drop in profit.
The group comprises The Herald, the Sunday Herald, the Evening Times and a magazine division.
It is estimated that The Herald newspaper alone has lost a third of its staff since it was bought by owners, Newsquest, five years ago.
Last summer, staff staged a walk-out at the prospect of a colleague being made compulsorily redundant, and a similar show of strength can be expected should any future redundancies be anything other than voluntary.
But then, various voluntary redundancy applications were agreed to last year, raising the concern where the next batch might come from and how those remaining will be able to cope with the workload.
Said a National Union of Journalists insider: "We will be holding a mass meeting next week to discuss the implications. Newsquest and [regional managing director] Tim Blott should not underestimate the level of anger among editorial staffs over a move based purely on corporate greed and Newsquest's need to service American shareholders at the expense of Scottish journalists."
Newsquest is installing, at the papers, a new, state-of-the-art editorial production system.
Meanwhile, concern about staffing levels at the Daily Record will see a meeting take place next week between the paper’s MD, Mark Hollinshead, and the NUJ Scottish Organiser, Paul Holleran, as part of a recognised, agreed disputes procedure.
Paul Holleran, told allmediascotland.com, from Spain - where he is on holiday: “At least we are meeting with the Daily Record. They have agreed to sit down and discuss. But Newsquest’s response to the [poor advertising] market is to slash 40 posts - it’s bordering on madness, as far as we are concerned.”
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comments
- "I would like to associate myself with John Smith's closing comment. Would that be the same John Smith, formerly of Forth Valley fame ?"
Ninian Reid 07/05/2008
report content as inappropriate - "I'd hate to be at The Herald now, and I think the Charlie in Mr Charles McGhee thinks so too. Hope so anyway...The poor old Herald. God rest her and all who sailed on her."
comic4 02/05/2008
report content as inappropriate - "Of all three titles, The Herald has lost the greatest percentage of staff since Newsquest pounced five years ago. With this horrible redundancy situation rearing its head again, I hope the paper isn't forced to take yet another disproportionate hit."
NotAgain 02/05/2008
report content as inappropriate - "i agree wholeheartedly with 'falkland' - why is it always the weary foot soldiers who have to take the impact of redundancies? with the herald losing at least a third of its staff in the last five years why exactly do we need so many of these highly-paid individuals with vague job titles?"
Watching 02/05/2008
report content as inappropriate - "Let's face it, we in the print media are all doomed. It's just a question of how long we can hold off the Grim Paper Reaper. And we have an additonal problem in Scotland. As a certain editor of The Scotsman once told me, The Herald and The Scotsman are just two wee papers pretending to be big papers. So the long road down doesn't look like much fun for the remaining overworked staff. I think they should get a non-journalistic life before it's too late."
Ben A Round 02/05/2008
report content as inappropriate - "Funny how the standards of both papers, particularly the dreary Herald, has fallen in proportion to the number of staff leaving. Good luck to the remaining staff."
John Smith 02/05/2008
report content as inappropriate - "You can only take so much flesh before you weaken the beast so much there is no longer any chance of long-term survival. There must be a stand taken (again!) and this time there must be support from government who claim they want to see a diverse quality media maintained in Scotland. I firmly believe this time the NUJ say that as they have coopersted as much as possible over previous redundancies, with the promise that this will stabilise and improve things at the company, there will be no cooperation this time until some mangerial responsibility is admitted and taken. In other words, management is included in the search for redundancies. Mr Blott already has a particularly shoogly nail for his coat and maybe should take some responsibility for this situation. His own reputation is now a pale shadow compared to his father's. I know it is old fashioned these days for anybody to take responsibility or blame for their actions, but I think the honourable thing for the company to do (if they know the meaning of the word) is, this time, to offer at least some managerial posts for redundancy. After all,there is a reduced staffing level, so why the need for so many managers?"
falkland 02/05/2008
report content as inappropriate - "Charles McGhee and his deputy at The Herald, Ms Harkness are hardly face-up-to-the-management types are they - and therein lies a huge danger for the hard-working and talented editorial team at the paper. A lack of balls at the other two titles - at editor level certainly - is as dispiriting as it is downright appalling. The Herald is a tame paper, generally, and working for such mealy-mouthed bosses must be soul destroying. D Sinclair is right - let's get some questions from the Scottish Government to Newsquest. Time to launch a Save The Herald campaign?"
united 02/05/2008
report content as inappropriate - "Everyone at The Herald already knows and fully understands what Newsquest is all about - constantly reducing the unit cost without any noticeable concern for the status or quality of the titles or the damaging effects on the remaining staff who have to seek to continue to produce the papers and magazines.
Far more worrying is the compliance of the editors and senior editorial staff with Newsquest's continuing demands.
Is it not time to see some principled stand taken by those who are supposed to understand that newspapers cannot maintain quality and standards when treeated as nothing more than cans of beans?
Governments are naturally reluctant to intervene in supposedly commercial decisions but the Scottish Government must intercede this time or the diversity of debate, and the quality of such debate, will disappear as the Scottish media scene is forced further down the road of parochialism because the purse string demands of ultimate US owner the Gannett Corporation mean that the Herald titles cannot afford to do anything else."
David Sinclair 02/05/2008
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