Journalists on the Mirror titles and People this afternoon called on chief executive Sly Bailey to resign following the news that 75 journalists are to be made redundant across the titles.
Members of the British Association of Journalists, the recognised union at the Mirror titles, today passed a motion expressing outrage at the “further slaughter” of journalists and accused Trinity Mirror management of being “incapable of running national newspapers”.
In 2010 Trinity Mirror announced plans to cut 200 journalists at its London-based national titles. According to the BAJ, this move resulted in 168 redundancies.
The latest proposed cuts are expected to reduce the editorial headcount at the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People to around 325.
The resolution passed by the BAJ today states:
“This meeting places on record its outrage at the proposed redundancy of 75 full and part-time journalists following 168 other redundancies only fifteen months ago.
“This meeting believes this further slaughter of journalists will only accelerate the decline in the journalistic quality of the three titles.
“The redundancies are unacceptable when MGN is making substantional profits and the Sunday Mirror and The People circulations have increased massively since the closure of the News of the World.
“Management has confirmed that the MGN titles made a profit of £60 million last year. So there is no justification for any redundancies.
“This meeting believes that Trinity Mirror management has shown itself incapable of running national newspapers. It is crippling the national titles while using MGN profits to prop up its mismanaged regional newspapers.
“This meeting, therefore, calls on Sly Bailey, the board of directors and the executive committee to resign forthwith.”
This morning the FT reported that major Trinity Mirror shareholders have expressed concern over the £1.7m pay package awarded to Bailey last year.
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