The Bristol Post’s website is to be rebranded in a move that has resulted in another round of job cuts among its editorial staff. The Post’s name will not appear on the new-look BristolLive site.
Owner Trinity Mirror, the national media group, said the launch of BristolLive – along with similar sites in other cities where it owns the main print titles and news websites – will involve creating a new standalone digital business separate from its current operation in the city.
The move is resulting in 49 job losses from newsrooms across Trinity Mirror’s regional titles – with four editorial staff going from the Bristol Post’s Temple Way office, understood to include its news editor, night editor and deputy sports editor and another member of its sports desk.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Bristol branch said it was “very concerned” at the “brutal” cuts – the latest in a long series at the group’s Bristol-based titles, which also include the regional morning newspaper the Western Daily Press.
The NUJ estimates that since 2005, the number of journalists employed on the two titles has been reduced at least fourfold – from about 170 to fewer than 40.
One Bristol Post journalist said it felt as if a “dark cloud” had descended on the newsroom when the latest cuts were announced.
Trinity Mirror, which acquired the Bristol Post two years ago as part of its £220m takeover of local newspaper publisher Local World, said in a statement: “Last autumn the Birmingham Mail began to pilot a new publishing approach aimed at creating a completely standalone and sustainable digital business under the new brand of BirminghamLive.
“We have been very pleased with the progress made in Birmingham where audience numbers are showing healthy increases since the switch to BirminghamLive, and today we are announcing plans to extend the model across the West and East Midlands, and our Bristol/Gloucester/Somerset/ Dorset regions.
“We are also continuing to refine our print production operations in some of these regions.
“Our proposals will result in up to 49 roles being at risk of redundancy and we have today entered into consultation with those affected. The majority are likely to be print related roles.”
Bristol NUJ chair Paul Breeden said: “The Bristol NUJ is very concerned at this further loss of experienced journalists at the Bristol Post, coming after more than a decade of brutal job cuts.
“The journalists who remain do a heroic job in keeping the people of the Bristol area informed. But clearly they’re not able to give nearly the depth of coverage they could in the past.
“Trinity Mirror seems fixated on separating its digital operation from its printed newspapers – even though the newspapers still make most of the money.
“It’s disappointing too that these four job cuts come less than a year after Post editor Mike Norton told a public meeting hosted by Bristol NUJ that he expected to be recruiting more staff in future, not downsizing.
“As the union’s national organiser Chris Morley has pointed out, Trinity Mirror has chosen to put the interests of its shareholders above the interests of its readers and its staff.
“This is the same policy as that followed by TM’s predecessors as owners of the Post, Local World and Northcliffe. In each case it’s had the same predictable result – a vicious circle of declining staff numbers producing less news, leading to a continuous decline in sales and revenue.
“The NUJ will be arguing that these job cuts are unfair, unworkable and unnecessary.”
Last November Trinity Mirror axed the free weekly newspaper the Bristol Observer, saying the decision was “driven by changing reader habits and customer needs”.
