Two editors at Trinity Mirror‘s stable of weekly newspapers in North Wales have opted to take early retirement as part of a restructuring of the company’s Welsh operation.
Group editor Alan Davies and Herald and Mail editor Jeff Earnes are both leaving the company.
Editor of the Anglesea Mail Linda Roberts will now also edit the Caenarfon Herald and Mail. North Wales Weekly News news editor Dan Owen becomes editor with additional responsibility for editing all the websites in the region.
Davies has been in journalism for 40 years, spending most of them with Thomson Regional Newspapers – which became part of Trinity Mirror in the mid-Nineties.
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He has edited newspapers for 26 years, moving to Llandudno Junction in 2000 to head up Trinity Mirror’s weekly operation in North Wales.
Before that he had long links with the company’s Cheshire operation based in Chester and was editor of the Flintshire Chronicle for years.
Earnes has a career in journalism spanning 38 years. He joined the Herald and Mail group in 1971 as a trainee reporter and was appointed editor of the titles in 1989.
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The paid-for North Wales Weekly News, Holyhead Mail and Caernarfon Herald have all won Wales BT Weekly Newspaper of the Year in recent years.
The North Wales Weekly News is a past winner of the Newspaper Society’s best paid-for weekly newspaper in Wales and the South West and both the Bangor Mail and the former Rhyl & St Asaph Visitor have been the NS’s best free newsaper in Wales.
“It’s a big wrench for both of us to leave the North Wales titles, but the major restructure we are undergoing makes this an opportune time for us to step aside,” Davies said.
“Our papers and our websites face huge challenges in the months ahead and we like to think we have helped build a strong platform that will help them survive the downturn and prosper when the economy picks up.
“North Wales is a very special place and our newspapers play a vital role at the heart of local communities. We will miss the people we have worked so closely with and readers we have got to know so well.”
Two weeks ago Trinity Mirror has announced the merger of its South Wales, North Wales and Liverpool divisions – causing two managers to lose their jobs.
Media Wales, which publishes the Western Mail, South Wales Echo, Wales on Sunday, and Celtic Weekly newspapers, is merging with Trinity Mirror North West and North Wales.
The merger means Keith Dye, managing director of Media Wales, has been made redundant.
Sara Wilde, managing director in the north-west, will run the new region – to be known as Trinity Mirror North West and Wales.
In November, Trinity Mirror North West and North Wales announced the loss of 78 jobs.
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