More jobs are to be lost at The Argus, just weeks after its new editor took the helm.
Brighton and Hove News understands that consultation has started on plans to make two of the three staff in the features department redundant, as well as two photographers. Another post is set to be lost from newspaper sales.
It is not known yet which of the paper’s five photographers, who between then have won a clutch of awards, will be affected.
Following dozens of jobs being lost in the past few years, staff at the paper are believed to be saddened but not surprised at the latest round of redundancies.
In 2010, the bulk of the paper’s subbing operation was moved to Southampton, with the loss of six sub editor posts and in 2011, six more editorial posts went along with 13 of the paper’s home delivery team.
Last year, all but one of the remaining five sub editor positions were scrapped with the move of the whole subbing team to Weymouth, along with the web editor position.
Editor Michael Beard resigned last year, and his successor Mike Gilson, formerly of the Belfast Telegraph, took over earlier this month.
It appears one of his first moves will be a wholesale redesign of the paper, with a three-month contract for a designer/graphic artist advertised on industry website holdthefrontpage.
He will be hoping to stem a steady decline in readership, with the latest circulation figures for July to December 2014 showing the paper is now selling 13,309 copies a day.
This is down 12.2 per cent on the year before, and less than half the 27,162 it sold five years before, from July to December 2009.
The paper has also announced its intention to move from its offices in Hollingbury and is looking for premises closer to centre of Brighton.
Sounds vaguely promising – for years under that dreadful Michael Beard, the Argus had been acting like some kind of Daily Mail wannabe, intent on trolling its readers as if its ultimate goal was to have them all biting each other’s faces off on Brighton seafront in a feral rage.
Dreadful stories like Siobhan Ryan’s MMR vaccine denialism, Adam Trimingham’s hatchet obituary on Patrick Moore, made up animal scandals to try and blag funds for the RSPCA (like that bogus “dog tied to back of car, dragged along the A27 and dumped in layby” bullsh1t), regular homophobic guff (although still always running an advertising stall at Pride, eh?) and that absolute nadir, the paedo-propaganda piece printing photos of children and what school they went to, relating how their mother was happy for them to be raped when they turned 12. Jesus wept!
Let’s hope this man from the Tele will raise the tone a little.
I have noticed layout and design changes already which make the paper look sharper and more like a national than a Parish Pump….
Literacy levels are not great in Great Britain….only about 80% with 1 in 5 not reading-ready for secondary school when they get there. So maybe newspapers should have a hands-on role of some kind in our schools to get kids reading. Maybe even in primary schools they could be ‘making’ their own newspapers as projects. SOMETHING.
But I heard that even the Telegraph shed a load of staff a couple of months ago, including a Picture Editor of many years standing (someone I know). But I don’t recall reading about that anywhere.