Local World chairman David Montgomery told MPs last month about what the change from print to digital will mean:
"We will have to harvest content and publish it without human interface, which will change the role of journalists.
Journalists collecting stories one by one is hugely unproductive. They will have to have new skills, greater responsibility for self publishing on different platforms."
Monty's statement to the culture and media select committee generated some controversy, prompting Local World's chief executive, Steve Auckland, to offer some clarification.
He told Press Gazette: "We are not doing away with journalists, that's not what we are about...
"Will the human interface disappear? It won't. In five or ten years time we will have editorial people reporting on things. They won't go out and write one story a day because it doesn't happen now, they will be doing multiple jobs."
But it appears from today's news from the Grimsby Telegraph that some editorial job losses will result from the change in journalists' roles.
Telegraph editor Michelle Lalor explained to staff that the merging of subbing and reporting jobs to create 12 "content managers" will result in the loss of two editorial jobs.
Redundancies - in Local World corporate-speak "headcount reductions" - are also anticipated among management, commercial and administrative staff.
Though these moves are likely to generate a measure of hostility - particularly given Montgomery's involvement - I don't think just two journalistic job losses can be viewed as unduly outrageous (except, of course, for the affected people).
I hate to see the editorial carnage across local and regional papers. But let's keep a sense of proportion. There are plenty of worse examples of cuts elsewhere.
