Reach has proposed major changes to how its sports journalists work, merging many of its national and regional teams in England into a central hub with around 50 redundancies anticipated.
Reach sports journalists were told on Wednesday of the restructure, through which many will begin to write across any of its national and regional titles in an attempt to end writers in different newsrooms covering the same events.
A team of specialist journalists will continue to be dedicated to the “most popular” football clubs and certain specialist sports like F1 and tennis but will write across Reach brands instead of for one title.
A small number of journalists will still be dedicated to one national brand but report into the same sports structure. Reach publishes the Mirror, Express and Daily Star national titles as well as regional brands like the Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo and Chronicle Live in Newcastle.
According to the National Union of Journalists, the number of dedicated correspondents covering Liverpool FC, Manchester United and football clubs in London is set to be halved.
Chief digital publisher David Higgerson said in a statement: “We are changing the structure of our sports teams to reduce duplication and work more efficiently, while ensuring dedicated resources to deliver exclusive content, rooted in the communities we serve.
“For example we will continue to have dedicated writers covering our most popular football clubs, as well as for a range of specialist sports including tennis, golf, and F1, delivering content across our portfolio.”
The NUJ said the company plans to make around 50 roles redundant and 104 roles have been placed at risk. Content editors are expected to be cut from 26 to 16.
Sports print production is also included in the shake-up, with sub-editors to be more than halved according to the NUJ.
According to the NUJ, roles have also been placed at risk among the arts desk and brand writers at the Mirror and the Express.
Head of sport Jake Murtagh told staff in an email, seen by Press Gazette: “The aim is to better serve our existing audiences in print and digital through a streamlined model, and reach new ones across multiple platforms, to set us up for a successful future.”
NUJ general secretary Laura Davison said the union is “deeply concerned by the impact these cuts will have on staff workload and morale. Either fewer staff will be expected to do more work, or Reach is seeking to use AI to fill the resulting gap.”
Reach last year launched its Guten AI tool which can “re-version” articles written for one Reach website for any of its other brands in house style, instead of a journalist spending time creating a slightly different version of the piece.
Davison continued: “The replication of content across Reach’s titles will mean less localised coverage and less media diversity. Ultimately, this results in a poorer product. The distinction between different Reach titles will blur with replicated articles less tailored to readers’ interests. An AI mimic would be no substitute for skilled journalists.
“Reach is a profitable company – and this is down to journalists’ hard work. Instead of cutting jobs, Reach should invest in its staff and quality journalism.”
The NUJ said staff have been told around 90 workers will be moved into comparable roles with 11 vacancies created.
The change follows the creation of Reach’s content hub last year, with 300 journalists moved into a traffic-driving central team writing content for use across any of the publisher’s dozens of national and regional websites, reducing duplication of people in different newsrooms writing about the same non-local topics (such as trends, TV and money).
The content hub was expanded in the autumn with the hiring of 60 additional journalists in roles including audience writers, general assignment journalists covering breaking news wherever it happens, social video journalists, and production journalists focused on money, travel and health.
Stories created by the content hub are published across the Reach network depending on where audience data indicates they will have the biggest impact.
Meanwhile several sports newsletters are among 21 recent launches by Reach on Substack, an experiment in which it is looking for new audiences on the newsletter platform.
Seven of the newsletters are focused on football clubs, including Blood Red covering Liverpool FC and The Post Horn Gallop about Leicester City, while others cover other sports such as Pit Lane Chronicle (F1), The Touchdown Collective (NFL) and The Cricket Drop.
The Reach NUJ Group Chapel said in a statement that members were “dismayed” by the redundancy plans. “These talented teams provide an incredible service to the public in their sports coverage and production in print and digital and among the National and regional titles in England and Wales…
“The nature of such large-scale cuts is devastating for those directly impacted but also their colleagues throughout the company. We are now inevitably entering a period of great uncertainty for our members in sport and for their livelihoods.”
The chapel statement continued: “The outline rationale provided by the company is to create a new structure that brings regional and nationals’ operations together to ‘optimise performance’. We think that may be at the expense of local knowledge and diversity of content. The elephant now in the room is what role does AI have in the company’s thinking that such a pared down structure may be possible? This is something very much on our agenda to determine.
“The other key concern at the outset of this redundancy collective consultation is workload – and what this might look like for those that remain after the cuts have been made. Our members were already reporting the difficulties in maintaining the levels of work demanded so we will be ensuring that due regard is given to the safety of these plans.”
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