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Union slams huge cuts by MEN Media, as Dodson 'deeply regrets' actions
Another major fissure was opened up yesterday in the region’s once solid local newspaper foundations, with the news that MEN Media is to make 150 redundancies and close all of the local editorial offices serving its portfolio of 23 weekly newspapers.
On the back of similar recent cuts by Trinity Mirror and Newsquest the nature of the announcement was not out of keeping with industry-wide trends, but the ‘brutality’ of the numbers involved ensured national coverage and swift condemnation from the NUJ.
To surmise the details of the move the GMG-owned group is looking to pare back overheads with 150 job losses. This figure will be accounted for with 39 journalists from the Manchester Evening News, 39 from the stable of weekly titles and additional cuts across advertising, distribution and IT.
Local offices will be closed in Accrington, Ashton, Macclesfield, Oldham, Rochdale, Rossendale, Salford and Wilmslow and all the company’s newspaper journalism, subbing and design will now be centralized within its Manchester city centre base.
Along with the staffing cuts – the MEN’s editorial headcount will be reduced to around 50 – less papers will be distributed, both of the MEN and weekly titles, and the MEN itself will drop in pagination.
It was, according to GMG Regional Media chief executive Mark Dodson, a “difficult” course of action.
He said in a statement from the firm: "MEN Media's role is to produce great journalism for our readers, users and viewers in Greater Manchester.
“If we want to continue to be able to do this, we need to find a new, sustainable, lower-cost business model to support it. The economic viability of local and regional newspapers is under very real and imminent threat.
"The decision about job losses has been a very difficult one to make, and I deeply regret that it has been necessary.
“Nonetheless, I do believe this is the right decision for MEN Media's future and for the majority of staff who will remain with the company.”
He concluded by noting: "This is a worrying time for everyone working in the local and regional press. Some argue that our industry has no future. I think this is completely wrong – people still want local and regional journalism, and advertisers want to reach those people."
The NUJ reacted angrily to news of the cuts with statements forthcoming from the union’s Northern representatives and its general secretary.
Jenny Lennox, NUJ assistant organiser in Manchester, said that the firm was” showing total contempt for the communities that have been the heartland of their business,” while general secretary Jeremy Dear mirrored these sentiments saying that they illustrated “total contempt for readers, advertisers, and the people left behind to do more work with no resources.”
Although the firm is looking to achieve its figures with voluntary redundancies the union claims that the sheer volume of job losses indicates that many will be compulsory.
“There have never been any compulsory editorial redundancies at the MEN before,” the union noted in another statement.
It was also claimed that the move railed against the values set out by Scott Trust founder CP Scott.
“I’m confident that Guardian readers will not sit idly by while the management ride roughshod over the company’s traditions,” Dear concluded.
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I for one am sad to see the decline of this great regional newspaper. The blame rests firmly with HORROCKS who badgered and bullied Journos all through his tenure. I gave this paper many splashs both locally and nationally. Horrocks thought he was invincible sacking and forcing out great journalists he was tyran. I am so GLAD that he has finally been given the order of the BOOT!Now he knows what it's liketo feel used and abused. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD HORROCKS!
Lest not forget all the other staff confronted by these decisions. These journalists seem to forget about the hundreds of non editorial staff kicked out over the last few years.
I can't remember their outrage then or now - Maybe if they had stuck up for the poorer relations in the business before, maybe a wee bit of sympathy may be shown by their colleagues.
As for the GMG- when did they ever care what happened
Well it's 11am Sunday morning, the day after the big Khan vs. Barrera fight and Man Utd vs. Liverpool game and guess what - the Manchestereveningnews.co.uk website has still not been updated since teatime Saturday - a good 17 hours ago. (It's the same every weekend.)
Well guess I'll just have to start using the BBC Manchester website then. Oh what's this, a bag of ammunition has been found in Manchester and some Utd fans have been fined for putting up offencive posters. No, still no update on the Evening News website yet!!
Twenty four hour media city? All going online instead? Well yes, but seems GMG Regional Media are going to start losing out there too!!
You can't blame the credit crunch for everything!!
Fair play to our local MEN Media paper, The Advertiser; they have reported their own issues on the front page of today's edition (which is the earliest that they have been able to do so).
I agree that we need a debate which examines the role of the regional/local media today, as there are a lot of questions raised by this.
How can papers cover their local area if they are not based there? My ex-employers (owned by Johnson Press) closed their daily paper's district editions last year and barely cover those patches now. That the same will happen here should be taken as given.
Is the current business model for regional media sustainable?
What is the MEN for?
Does any of this really matter? I would say yes, and many journalists certainly think so. But, outside of the media, many others think differently and certainly do not hold that view that democracy would collapse without a strong local press.
They are important questions, that haven't been answered by the very sad but also inevitable events of the last few days.
bigbadbob - I've actually been in a position when I've had to use the same terms as those put forward above by MEN staff ('ill informed' etc) to complain about its own innaccurate, unfair and hostile reporting. It has got me nowhere. My comments merely point to that fact.
I have no axe to grind with them beyond pointing out that if they can't take negative comments they should be so bleeding quick to dish them out when they are not necessary!
Maybe now the staff know what it's like to be 'in the eye of a storm' they will behave differently the next time they are following up a complaint from a customer/resident that they know has next to no news value. Sometimes, the more honest ones will even admit this themselves, but explain that they are acting under orders.
That's not good work, as you put it. In fact, you're as guilty as generalising there as you accuse me of being.
Also, yesterday the MEN ran a piece about a firm losing 50 jobs. They have also run prominent leads and comment pieces about 'cuts' at ITV - but not a mention of the huge and lasting cuts MEN Media has announced this week. What is fair and 'good' about that? I know they are not alone in not giving their readers the full picture on important stories that affect their lives, but that does not mean that they are not letting their readership down. And it certainly doesn't mean that they are doing a good job.
There's an irony - which I take no pleasure in - in reading MEN journos complain about being 'sickened by 'ill informed' comments above.
Maybe they now will think twice before they stick the boot in with a story straight out of the book of ill informed reporting.
Somehow, though, with pressure increasing on those that remain to deliver and set 'the agenda' I doubt it.
what on earth are you on about lookforward?
Looks like you have an axe to grind with the MEN - you've made sweeping generalisations and unhelpful statements.
Good luck to the staff there - keep up the good work.
Very, very sorry for MEN's loyal and hard-working staff - it's a sad day.
It's a shame that the four senior editors Horrocks, McGeoghan, Ridley and Wood - who all command big salaries - have not seen fit to make even a token gesture of cutting their wages to save one or two journalists' jobs.
Bosses in other struggling sectors are doing it, why not in the Press?
Just some random thoughts….
Generally speaking, MEN journalists are talented and hard-working.
They can’t be blamed for the declining quality of the paper. They don’t make those decisions.
This latest announcement has been coming for the last ten years.
I left the MEN in ’98, partly because I was sickened by the lack of commitment to editorial content and quality and by the constant cost-cutting. Journalists were never valued by the management and have always been the convenient whipping boys. The MEN is nothing, if not entirely consistent.
Sadly, I never thought I would see people use ‘How Do’ to make nasty, spiteful and uninformed comments which only aid and abet the management and which appear to celebrate the misfortune of decent journalists.
Nothing has changed. That process has just accelerated, because of the double whammy of the internet and recession.
There is no doubt at all, that the MEN has been steadily declining, in both quality and circulation. It is not the paper it once was. That is unarguable. It is also clear who is responsible – and it isn’t the journalists. They haven’t suddenly stopped making the right contacts, the killer phone calls, or the correct judgements. But the environment in which they work certainly has changed.
What is happening at the MEN is also happening at the Liverpool Echo/Daily Post and elsewhere. It is happening right across the newspaper industry. Journalism is at the crossroads, the future may well be online.
Surely then, what is needed now is a rational, sensible and informed debate about the future role of local newspapers in a healthy, modern democracy?
Maybe sponsoring such a discussion could be How Do’s contribution? (At least it would make a change from yet another meaningless awards ceremony).
Denis MacShane and others have recently floated the idea of public support – ie, public money – for struggling local papers/the media.
What’s wrong with that?
I would much rather see my government providing practical support for community development and local democracy by backing local papers and the local media, than baling out the bankers.
But could there be a role for new models of newspaper ownership - social enterprises, co-ops, local authority stakeholders, partnership publications with the private sector?
And before I am drowned out in shrieks about Freedom Of The Press (its not very free when people are being sacked and offices are being closed, is it?), there would obviously have to be strict safeguards on editorial freedom and independence. (We all know what a fragile little flower editorial integrity already is!)
Because, if we have learned anything from events at the MEN, it is surely that quality journalism is too important to be left to the vagaries of the free market and its cynical pursuit of profit at all costs.
The MEN journalists are intelligent, educated, fully-trained and dedicated. They have fought against the decline in the newspaper for years ... please ignored by bosses.
The bosses don't care about the news. Dodson, from an advertising background, describes it as "the bit around the adverts".
He - and other newspaper bosses - claim that readers get what they want. Reporters don't 'ignore the real stories that mattter' ... they are desperate to report them but can't due to lack of time, lack of resources, lack of staff and lack of interest from the bosses.
Rather than sniping why not do something productive - write to Dodson and tell him that you want more news. Tell him that if the newspaper was produced well you would buy it. Tell him you don;t buy a newspaper to read the adverts. Telll him why the MEN needs more journalists, not less. Tell him he could use his £15,000 bonus to pay for some!
1 Scott Place Manchester M3 3GG