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'Newspaper groups are guilty of mismanagement and short-sighted greed'

I was the chief sub-editor at the East London and West Essex Guardian series until my position, along with all the other sub-editors, was made redundant between October and December last year.

The quality of the papers, owned by Newsquest, is now suffering badly as reporters are being 're-moulded' into 'multi-skilled journalists' and expected to report, take photographs, sub-edit and layout pages for the Waltham Forest, Wanstead and Woodford and Epping Forest Guardian with little or no training.

I took redundancy, without much option, with a reasonable two weeks pay for every year worked; whereas the company has just announced that there will only be one week for every year for any further redundancies made. Also, editorial staff have been told that they could be expected to take a week of unpaid leave during the coming year to make up revenue shortfalls.

My understanding, after being with the paper since 2000 when I started as a reporter, is that the shareholders at Newsquest's parent company Gannett in the US had been milking massive profits during the good years leading up to the current recession.

What with witnessing a minimal investment in the business during my employment, it would now appear that there is no cash left in the coffers to ride out the bad times and, most worryingly, to protect the jobs of vulnerable staff like the trainee reporters and photographers who are facing up to the prospect of being axed.

This is most likely the case with the other newspaper groups, like Trinity Mirror and Johnston Press, which are also laying off staff left, right and centre as, it has to be suggested, a consequence of nothing more than dismal mismanagement, short-sighted business acumen and, above all, greed.

I even recall the National Union of Journalists organising a protest outside the home of Newsquest's CEO, Paul Davidson, a few years ago following his decision to boost his six-figure salary with an additional six-figure bonus for the year.

Doesn't that sound reminiscent of the actions of the now much-villified bankers blamed for getting our country into the current financial mess?

Our CEO's actions were actually a much worse abuse of position. Firstly, because when he pocketed thousands it was the same year that the company waived employees' end-of-year performance related bonuses, informing staff that revenue targets had been narrowly missed.

Secondly, because the primary purpose of working as a regional journalist is to defend the vulnerable and to act as watchdogs, reporting the kind of corruption which, it could be argued, the management and owners of our newspapers are themselves guilty of.

Finally, most journalists who are now finding themselves out in the cold will more than likely move into PR or council-run publications, which will begin to appear to readers as though they are the authoritative voices on local news and events. State-run propaganda machines will take the place of unblinkered, unbiased and independent reporting.

Let's hope someone works out how to make local newspaper websites reap revenue soon otherwise we could be heading towards a complete media meltdown. The worse case scenario could be that these much-valued and prized assets of our communities will disappear completely taking with them the source of grass roots news which feeds our national media.

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business | newspapers | newsquest | paul davidson | darren rackham |

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