Chapels set to take groupwide action in defence of standards atNUJ reps from across Johnston Press’s main publishing centres have unanimously backed a motion of no confidence in the company’s senior management – and urged shareholders and readers to act to save their local papers. NUJ reps from across Johnston Press’s main publishing centres have unanimously backed a motion of no confidence in the company’s senior management – and urged shareholders and readers to act to save their local papers.
As redundancies, recruitment freezes, budget cuts, title and office closures and the axing of freelances hit Johnston Press newsrooms across the UK and Ireland, the NUJ is to stage a co-ordinated, groupwide day of actions to highlight the damage being done to local papers. MPs will be urged to get involved in the day alongside community organisations, and individual shareholders will be lobbied.
The cuts programme has dealt a severe blow to Central Counties Newspapers titles, including the Banbury Guardian, which have lost four of eleven photographers, and all their editorial assistants, whose job it had been to cover the village news and entertainments as well archiving and other administrative tasks.
£81.6MN OPERATING PROFITS
The company claims the cuts were necessary because of the catastrophic fall in advertising, but the NUJ has disputed this, pointing to the Johnston’s results for the first half of 2008, which show an operating profit of £81.6 million before non-recurring items, demonstrating the newspapers themselves continue to make significant profit for the company.
INTOLERABLE PRESSURE
NUJ members complain that job cuts and the widespread non-replacement of staff are putting intolerable pressures on remaining journalists or leading to situations where papers are unable to cover their local areas.
The union has also received countless complaints of overwork and under resourced newsrooms across the company and unrest isn’t just limited to those papers where cuts have been formally announced.
NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: "A tipping point has been reached – and the latest cuts are now threatening the very future of the papers. If you continue to deny resources for editorial you inevitably produce worse products and why would businesses advertise in or readers buy such products.
"The strategy of cut, cut, cut in editorial budgets has been shown to be a failure and it’s time it was reversed. Shareholders should be fearful for their investments and local communities should fear for the future of their papers.
"We won’t sit back and allow jobs and quality journalism to be threatened. The mood amongst our members is one of determination to actively oppose cuts which damage quality, lead to increased workloads, threaten the future of the titles and put at risk more jobs".
AW 2008-09-03
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