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 (pictured) 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.
“These further reforms are
designed to strengthen the titles. The newspapers not merging and will
continue to be edited independently by their existing editors.”
The
papers have reviewed their edition times and structures and will print
over night 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 by the Daily Mail & General Trust. A shortlist of
potential buyers is expected to be drawn up in February.
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