Major changes are on the cards at the UK’s biggest regional publisher, and owner of major local outlets including the Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo as well as nationals the Daily Mirror, Star and Express, Reach plc.
Staff have been warned to expect more job cuts and a smaller overall editorial team, although new jobs will also be created through a new ‘Live News Network’ and an overnight news team based in Australia, which bosses say they have begun recruiting for.
The latest changes come following hundreds of job cuts in 2023, followed by a promise of ‘no plans for further cuts’ in 2024, which appears to have now expired. Earlier in the summer, the group also restructured its sports operations, promising to create a single ‘vertical’ sports hub that will service all its regional and national brands, with between 30 and 50 jobs set to go, while former CEO Jim Mullen jumped ship for the Jockey Club with a £600k bonus in the bank in the Spring.
Staff were briefed on the latest changes in a live-streamed ‘town hall’ meeting yesterday (Thursday 21st August) led by David Higgerson, former chief digital publisher and now chief content officer.
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Full details are yet to come, but Higgerson confirmed that, although new roles will be created, the proposals would lead to a smaller editorial team overall.
The briefing was followed up by an email to staff from regionals editorial director Paul Rowland, which has been published in full by HoldtheFrontPage.
In it, Rowland promised greater use of video, more emphasis on emerging social networks, and a fresh look at subscriptions.
He wrote: “During my town hall tour of all our teams earlier this year, some of the key themes that came through were around how we needed to up our game on video, be more active on emerging social platforms, consider dipping back into subscriptions, and make better use of the fantastic journalism that exists around our network.
“What you’ve heard today is a clear intention to move into those spaces, and that will bring some exciting opportunities: telling stories in different ways, engaging new audiences and finding new ways to make our content pay.
“We’ll put dedicated video teams into our brands, allowing us to tell our stories in different ways and reach new audiences. These “everyday journalism” video teams will help us significantly increase our video output, with the balance of what we produce shifting so that we have less text-only content.
“We’ll also set up the Live News Network, creating a structure which, for the first time, allows us to fully harness the benefit of our biggest USP – having more journalists situated across the UK and Ireland than any other commercial publisher.
“As part of this plan, our dedicated live news teams based across England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will work hand-in-hand with the brand teams in those areas, but their content will also flow into a live news hub containing dedicated teams to serve our national brands.
“We want that hub to include a visual journalism unit, allowing us to produce maps, infographics and interactive elements that will help our coverage to stand out from the crowd. And we’ll break stories on a fully 24/7 basis through an overnights team based in Australia, which we’re currently hiring for.”
Higgerson told Prolific North in a statement: “Alongside the business’s new strategic priorities, as announced in July, we will be radically reorganising our editorial structure for today’s media landscape.
“One of the biggest changes teams will see will be a patch-led approach to news gathering. We will run our news via a dispersed Live News Network, with reporters spread out across the UK, Ireland and beyond. Stories will be told on the ground where they happen, and we will be appointing a new leader in this area who will coordinate our efforts.
“We will also significantly increase our video output while producing less text-only content. We’ll be bringing in new talent to deliver this, while creating ‘everyday journalism video teams’ woven into all of our newsrooms.
“All of this will enable our brand editors to put a greater level of focus on the work that makes their brand special. This means more focus on the campaigning, investigating, or personality led journalism that speaks to audiences of the Mirror, Express or the Manchester Evening News, for example, and will support loyal audience growth at a time of turbulent referrer traffic.”
