By Sarah Lagan and Jon Slattery
Northcliffe’s Gloucestershire Echo and Gloucester Citizen are to cut up to 20 editorial posts.
The job cuts come as the subs, sports, features, photographic and most of the reporters will be based in Cheltenham, home of the Echo, with only a small office left in Gloucester, home of the Citizen.
Both editors, the Echo’s Anita Syvret and Citizen’s Ian Mean are to keep their jobs and will be based at Cheltenham.
A Northcliffe spokesman said: “The two papers will still be kept as very separate independent titles. Newsgathering will remain individual to each title although they will establish what they call a small joint reporting team to cover key areas that affect the whole county such as health, education and local government.
But they have not decided to go down the editor-in-chief route.”
The papers have reviewed their edition times and structures and will print overnight so they are available first thing in the morning. A county edition of the Echo will supplement the town edition. The city final of the Citizen will be dropped but the district edition will remain. Print times will move forward.
The company is going to establish joint sport and features teams. There will also be joint sub-editing, production and photographic.
The changes are part of Northcliffe’s cost saving Aim Higher programme introduced in the summer prior to the announcement in December that the whole group was being put up for sale.
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