Trinity Mirror has announced that 90 editorial jobs are to go at the Scottish Daily Record and the Sunday Mail.
The company also revealed it is outsourcing the design and subbing of some magazine and features pages to the Press Association, and will share non-Scottish news and features with its sister-titles the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the People.
In a statement released this afternoon, the company said the restructure will result in ‘one of the most technologically advanced and operationally efficient digital newsrooms in Europe”.
It insisted the move will allow the newspapers to focus on Scottish news and sport with ‘an editorial structure fit for purpose in this fast moving multimedia publishing environment”.
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‘The wide-ranging proposals take advantage of the company’s ongoing investment in the ContentWatch editorial system which streamlines the production process and facilitates online publishing,’the company said.
Trinity has now entered into a consultation period with staff. The generation and production of Scottish news and sport pages all remain at Central Quay in Glasgow, the company said.
The statement continued: ‘The editorial team in Scotland will be responsible for coordinating the outsourcing of pages and deciding which national stories are appropriate for a Scottish readership.”
Editor-in-chief Bruce Waddell said: ‘In common with all newspapers, the Daily Record and Sunday Mail are not immune from the current difficult economic conditions and our industry is experiencing unprecedented structural change.
‘We have to constantly review and adapt the way we work to harness the opportunities available to us.
‘Ultimately, our plan will retain what the Daily Record and Sunday Mail does best – the generation and production of brilliant Scottish news and sports – while safeguarding their future success for generations to come.’
The National Union of Journalists said it understands that national, international and showbiz stories will be supplied from the London papers under the new system.
NUJ Scottish Organiser Paul Holleran said: ‘We are absolutely shocked and stunned at the news. We are meeting with management tomorrow to discuss their proposals for handling the cuts and suggesting alternatives.
‘We will be arguing such a savage cut in jobs would be destructive for the future of the Daily Record and Sunday Mail in Scotland and arguing that the company should reconsider.
‘The company’s proposals would mean a significant number of editorial jobs would be taken out of Scotland and this would impact on the Daily Record and Sunday Mail’s unique Scottish identity. The loss of such a high volume of jobs to journalism in Scotland is totally unacceptable.’
NUJ members on the Daily Record and Sunday Mail went out on strike in 2009 over proposals then to cut 70 out of 278 editorial jobs on the two papers.
In June 2010 Trinity Mirror announced plans to cut 200 editorial jobs across the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and the People. Many of those cut were sub-editors, with much of the production work outsourced to PA. Those cutbacks were also accompanied by the introduction of the ContentWatch system.
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