Some of the the Mirror’s best-known columnists are leaving in the latest cutbacks at the title.
Paul Routledge, Miriam Stoppard and Polly Hudson are all leaving the paper over the next few months.
Motoring columnist Colin Goodwin, who works on a freelance basis, is also understood to be leaving as his contract has been ended with publisher Reach.
Political columnist Routledge has been with the Mirror since 1998. Long-serving Mirror journalist Hudson has a full-page column in the Mirror on Wednesdays which carries the tagline: “Warning: may contain sarcasm… and cats.” Dr Miriam Stoppard is another long-serving Mirror contributor and writes a full-page weekly column providing health advice.
The feeling among insiders is that these popular print contributors have been cut because they are not driving sufficient digital traffic.
Mirror editor Caroline Waterston said in a note to staff: “As part of our planning for next year, I have been looking closely at where our priorities lie, what our audiences need from us, both digitally and in print, and what the Mirror needs to grow and thrive.
“With this in mind, I have made some changes to our external columnists as we focus more on how we continue to serve our readers, including attracting new audiences who are only just starting to discover us.
“I’ve already spoken to those who will be stepping down over the next few months. I want to thank Paul Routledge, Miriam Stoppard and Polly Hudson for everything they have given the Mirror – lending so much of their talent, humour and passion to our readers – for so many years. We wish them all well and my hope is we will still get the chance to work with them on their specialty topics when the opportunities arise.
“As you all know, we have a brilliant roster of columnists, including Kevin Maguire, Darren Lewis, Ros Wynne-Jones and many more, and I look forward to continuing to work with them all. I encourage you all to think about how opinion and comment works for your area and what else we could do to engage our audience.”
According to Ipsos iris the Mirror website reached 17 million people in September, putting it behind The Guardian, Mail Online, The Sun and The Independent. The Daily Mirror print edition sells just over 200,000 copies per day and is declining at a rate of 15% year on year.
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