Closings Continue Across the Atlantic

By: E&P Staff But for a few markets, mostly in Asia and South America, newspapers overseas continue to cut back or close, and July brings more bad news.

One British group said it plans to close nine local titles at a cost of almost 120 jobs, while another announced it will eliminate 27 jobs, or almost a quarter of its staffers, at its main print site. Both hope buy-outs will obviate layoffs.

At the same time, South Africa's oldest independent newspaper has closed its pressroom and begun outsourcing its printing.

Financial Times reported that Trinity Mirror is looking to fold nine papers in England's Midlands after having closed 27 other titles and sold four regional papers in the past year, reducing its work force by approximately 1,200. The latest round will shutter weeklies and niche publications and reduce pressroom staffing, with total job losses reported elsewhere at 118.

The FT quoted Trinity Mirror Regionals Managing Director Georgina Harvey saying the group hopes an offer of buy-outs will avoid the need for layoffs, and that staffers at its unaffected Midlands businesses also may "volunteer for redundancy."

In what analysts describe as a merge-or-die environment for regional groups, the FT reports Trinity Mirror advertising fell 30% in January and February "and is expected to get worse," after suffering an annual loss for 2008.

Today, The Guardian reports that Guardian News & Media also seeks voluntary reductions. The company, which also publishes Guardian Weekly, the Observer and related Web sites, said it is eliminating 27 positions at its east London printing plant.

"The economic downturn has had a significant impact on the... number of newspaper copies we are printing," General Manager Joe Clark said in a statement to staff.

Cost cutting elsewhere in the company will shrink staff at its new London headquarters from 850 to fewer than 800 by year's end and eliminate 82 of about 840 jobs in the commercial operation.

Meanwhile, Grocott's Mail, South Africa's oldest independent newspaper, ended printing in Grahamstown upon the retirement of former owner Jeff Grocutt, according to a report in yesterday's The Dispatch, East London, South Africa. The pressroom closure put eight staffers out of work.

General Manager Louise Vale attributed the decision to the difficult economy and the Rhodes University-owned paper's need to "focus on its core business of publishing." She said the printing operation was no longer cost effective.

Printing is now handled by a Port Elizabeth company in 30 minutes rather than the 16-hour runs per edition on the paper's own presses.

After business slumped in recent years for the paper founded by Grocott's great grandfather in 1870, it was sold in 2003 to Rhodes University to train its journalism schools' students. The Dispatch reported that the David Rabkin Project for Experiential Journalism was created as the newspaper's holding company.

The aim was to "strengthen the company" with new electronic media, according to project chairman and Professor Guy Berger. "We are not printers, we are communicators," he said.

But after only one missed edition in almost 140 years, the idled press made said Jeff Grocott "very sad."