With the axe hanging over the staff at Press Gazette - expect an announcement later today - it's great to see that they have not lost their ability to laugh in the face of adversity. According to the magazine's Axegrinder blog, "a certain gallows humour" has descended at the magazine. So they've been playing with an Excel-based "job predictor" to forecast their future occupations.
The results? Editor Ian Reeves is to become a hypnotist and his deputy, Jon Slattery, will be a children's TV presenter. Heavyweight reporter Dominic Ponsford can expect a post as a headteacher while his colleague, Sarah Lagan, is inexplicably due to be a garden gnome. PG's resident blogger, Martin Stabe, is evidently looking forward to a career as a stand-up comic.
But the sting is in the tail. "So much for the staff", it concludes, "but what about their (at least until tonight) paymasters?" Piers Morgan, who has already spent years as Fleet Street's resident stand-up comedian, will assume the role of "alien investigator" and Matthew Freud will end up as a mime artiste. A silent Freud? I don't think so.
Anyway, more seriously, we await news of Press Gazette's own fate. Will it become a mime artiste for the national newspapers, or can we expect a new puppet master to emerge from the ranks of the trade magazine industry? A report on PG's website this morning says that "a majority of the national newspaper groups have expressed a commitment to work together to explore ways to make the proposal work, and expressions of interest have also been made by significant players from the regional press and magazine publishing world."
Maybe. Maybe not. Not all nationals are keen and the regionals are very hesitant indeed. Despite the urgency, there's a long way to go yet before there will be any agreement.
