MORE than 320 journalism jobs are being axed at a major newspaper publisher amid plans for a major editorial overhaul.
Reach Plc, which has a number of titles in Scotland, has put 600 editorial jobs at risk, with 321 roles set to be made redundant under what it says is its biggest-ever restructure.
Reach employed more than 2320 editorial staff across its operations at the end of last year, according to its latest annual report.
The firm said 135 new journalism roles will be created under aims for a new live news network and expanded audio and video offering.
The latest cull adds to around 40 redundancies across its sports editorial team, which were announced in July.
A small number of roles are also being cut across other departments, such as commercial and human resources, as part of a wider restructure across Reach, although the group is not confirming numbers at this stage.
Reach publishes well-known titles such as The Mirror, Express and Daily Star.
In Scotland, its titles include the Daily Record, the Scottish Daily Express and a number of regional titles including in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.
David Higgerson, chief content officer at Reach, said: “Our new structure represents the biggest reorganisation we’ve ever undertaken, even more than in the early days of the digital revolution.
“The changes we are seeing in the landscape right now demand a wholesale change in how we operate and how we tell stories.
“For our editorial teams, we will need to adopt a different way of working from top to bottom, as we match our resources to our ambitions.
“It will mean that some jobs will sadly no longer exist, many will change and around 135 new roles will be created, many in our live news network and video teams.”
Reach staff impacted by the latest restructure were told on Monday.
The company said it would give priority to applications for newly-created roles from affected employees.
While it is not clear how the redundancies will be split across roles, it is understood general news and production staff will be among those impacted, with national titles set to be affected to a greater extent.
The group’s new live news network will be headed by Paul Rowland, editorial director of news.
In a memo sent to staff, Higgerson said the group’s brands would “benefit from the work of our live news network, sports team and content hub, so they will have smaller teams dedicated to super-serving their target audiences, so their journalism is sought out, remembered and widely read”.
In terms of production, he added that the overhaul will “bring together our middle bench, design and subbing teams for the English and Scottish nationals”.
“This smaller team will work across all national titles, allowing for more content sharing and streamlined designs.”
Reach recently appointed former chief revenue officer Piers North as chief executive.
He replaced Jim Mullen, who left abruptly at the end of March after nearly six years in the role to head up horse-racing company The Jockey Club.
North – who joined Reach in 2014 – has extensive experience in digital media, having held several senior digital strategy roles both at Reach and at Yahoo, after starting his career as a digital journalist.
Responding, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said the cuts were a "devastating body blow" to the publisher's journalists.
Chris Morley, NUJ national Reach coordinator, said: "Yet again, morale is being dragged down by the threat of mass redundancies of journalists whose only crime is to work hard and strive to reach massive audiences with quality journalism each day.
“The thought that any media business can afford to shed hundreds of talented journalists to secure its future makes you wonder what sort of future that will be.”
