The Mirror is opening a Manchester base for its journalists as new prime minister and ex-mayor for the city Andy Burnham puts a spotlight on the region.
Mirror North will open within the Manchester Evening News office at the end of September, acting as a base for Mirror journalists who live in the North.
This is currently a handful of staff but the aim is that it ultimately helps attract and retain staff who want to be based outside London.
The Mirror North operation will be led by former Liverpool Echo editor-in-chief Maria Breslin as editorial director. She will have responsibility for the Mirror’s online team, ensuring it aligns with the brand of the newspaper, as well as the paid digital subscription offering Mirror+ which costs £3.99 per month for premium content and fewer adverts.
Mirror editor-in-chief Chloe Hubbard, who joined from The Independent earlier this year, said: “Opening Mirror North signals a commitment to attract talent from outside of London, working and living in the heartland of our readership.
“I want the Mirror to authentically reflect the communities our readers live in. It is a longstanding personal crusade of mine to attract regional talent into the national press, which is often populated by those from the London radius who can afford to live in the capital.”
Reach said the Mirror reaches 41% of the online population in the North, the brand’s highest concentration of audience among English regions.
The opening of the office space marks a return for the Mirror to the site where its Northern team once occupied the ground floor when it was owned by Trinity Mirror.
The Manchester Evening News has been based at the space in Oldham since 2010. The site also remains the home of Reach’s Oldham printing facility.
Breslin, who became Liverpool Echo editor in 2020, said she was “so proud of what we achieved over the years.
“But I’m beyond excited to be joining the Mirror and working with Chloe and her team on such an historic national brand. Playing a key role in ensuring voices from the Mirror’s northern heartlands are heard is a big draw as is our subscription service Mirror+ and working with, and developing, our online publishing team.”
New Liverpool Echo editor appointed
Steve Graves, who already led the Liverpool Echo on an interim basis this year while Breslin was seconded to the Mirror ahead of Hubbard’s arrival, is now taking up the editor-in-chief role on a permanent basis.
He joined the Echo in 2013 as a reporter and has also worked as brand editor, content editor and executive editor. He will become editor at the end of September following a handover period alongside Breslin.
Graves said: “The Echo was founded in 1879 as a ‘necessity’ which would ‘please many tastes’. The same applies today. Working with our brilliant team based in Liverpool city centre, I’m determined to maintain the Echo’s strong links with the communities we serve.
“It’s been brilliant to see so many readers subscribe to Liverpool Echo Premium since its launch in December last year, while we are seizing the opportunity to reach more people than ever through social media, newsletters and new platforms. And of course the newspaper which has been at the heart of our brand since the beginning is a fixture on thousands of kitchen tables.”
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