Five journalist jobs are expected to be cut at The Scotsman, with specialist reporters, features and business writers affected.
Press Gazette understands this could amount to a loss of approximately a quarter of correspondents and writers in the newsroom.
Staff were told of the proposals on Wednesday, the day before owner National World put out its half-year results showing 17% year-on-year growth in revenue to £48.8m and adjusted operating profit up 62% to £4.7m.
Press Gazette understands eight journalists’ jobs have been put at risk. Three features writers have been placed at risk with one redundancy expected, two business writers are at risk with one job loss proposed, and three specialist writers are at risk.
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Update on 9 August: Health correspondent Joseph Anderson has revealed he is one of the specialist journalists affected, writing on X: “Bad news: The Scotsman is making the role of Health Correspondent – and therefore me – redundant. I’ve spent nearly two years in my dream job, and in that time have amassed 100+ front pages across the daily and Scotland on Sunday titles. I’m now looking for opportunities…”
The cuts would follow the loss of two football writers in January, leaving one dedicated football reporter. The NUJ noted that rival Newsquest has been recruiting football writers for Glasgow-based The Herald and has launched new football websites covering Edinburgh teams Hibs and Hearts, entering traditional Scotsman territory.
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Nick McGowan-Lowe, NUJ national organiser for Scotland, told Press Gazette: “The Scotsman has a long and proud history. It now has a much smaller staff, albeit of experienced journalists respected by newsrooms across Scotland, but apparently not by National World’s management in England.
“These proposed cuts, following soon after the axing of two football writers earlier in the year, create more worrying gaps in the coverage. It seems National World is making rash, short-term decisions which are destroying any plan of investing in quality, long-form journalism to build up subscriptions.
“National World, under the management of David Montgomery, is a company which cuts staffing to the bone and then wonders why circulation bleeds.”
In a statement on Friday, the NUJ claimed the decision on the cuts had been made by National World executives based in England allegedly because The Scotsman had not reached its subscriptions targets.
However in National World’s half-year results on Wednesday it said that together The Scotsman, Yorkshire Post, News Letter, Express and Star and Shropshire Star brands had grown their subscriber base by 17% since December 2023.
Total subscribers to National World websites and apps were said to be up by 8% since then to 20,877.
Digital subscription revenue was flat at £0.8m, with a decline of 4% in the first quarter followed by growth of 5% between April and June.
The NUJ held a chapel meeting for Scotsman staff on Thursday at which a motion of “anger and dismay” was passed.
NUJ members are now seeking a meeting with Scotsman editor Neil McIntosh “to explain why such severe cuts were needed only three weeks after he told journalists they had achieved year-on-year growth and congratulated them for their performance, effort and hard work”, according to the union.
The NUJ said The Scotsman had a target to double page views by the end of 2024 and reported that McIntosh recently told staff the first half of the year had been a “good start”. However the union claimed the site has recently struggled in Google.
The National World results showed there was “continued volatility” in traffic across its network of sites with average combined page views of 136 million in the first half of 2024 down 4% year-on-year. The first quarter suffered more, down 8%, with 1% growth in the second quarter.
The publisher’s target is to reach an average of 150 million monthly page views in 2024 and it said it has “implemented a range of initiatives to improve page view performance in the second half”.
However it added: “The business is transitioning away from page view (PV) metrics, towards what our customers and advertisers recognise as higher value content. This is demonstrated by our 12% increase in digital revenue despite a 4% decrease in PV, and a 25% increase in video revenue despite a 24% decrease in video views.”
In print The Scotsman had a total average daily circulation of 7,710 in the second half of 2023, down 12% year-on-year, of which 3,833 were paid subscriptions.
McGowan-Lowe said in a statement released by the NUJ: “Our members at The Scotsman shouldn’t have to pay the price for the muddled mess of a business strategy from National World. They have achieved what they have been asked to do, and their editor has congratulated them for it.
“National World management claim they are trying to turn the company into a ‘premium content business’, but these job cuts fall on those same talented, award-winning journalists who consistently produce excellent Scottish journalism.
“National World CEO David Montgomery needs to be supporting the editor of The Scotsman and its journalists so they can continue to produce quality, informed journalism. You don’t attract more subscribers by offering them less content.”
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