The UK’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said it has “decried substantial job cuts” announced by tabloid news publisher Reach plc as it accelerates its tech and AI capabilities.
Reach also currently publishes Scottish Business Insider and important regional news titles throughout the UK.
“The NUJ has repeatedly voiced its growing concern over the use of artificial intelligence to replace the work of journalists at the publisher, and is seeking further clarification on how AI will feature in the restructure,” said the union.
“As the consultation process commences, the union will engage with Reach over cuts and has stressed the importance of meaningful and transparent engagement.”
The NUJ claims a proposed restructuring by Reach for its editorial function “puts 600 journalists at risk and threatens 321 jobs being cut.”
However, 135 new roles are expected to be created “which could mitigate the overall number of individuals leaving the company.”
The new wave of job cuts follows those announced in recent weeks by Reach impacting its sports news teams.
Reach is the publisher of titles including the Daily Record, The Express, The Mirror, Manchester Evening News, Daily Star and Liverpool Echo.
On July 24, Reach plc CEO Piers North said in the firm’s half year results statement: “Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for our business, as we launch the priorities that will fuel our growth.
“These include initiatives to reach new audiences, increase our video content and accelerate our tech and AI capabilities.
“Crucially, we’ll do more work to diversify our revenues, putting a serious focus on adding subscriptions to our revenue mix.
“Over the past six months we have performed well. Our audience growth has been driven by our innovative content and distribution hubs, our in-house recommender tools, and our US expansion.
“Digital revenue continues to grow, supported by reliable print revenues, despite a challenging market and set against a strong events comparator.”
Chris Morley, NUJ national Reach coordinator, said “Yet again, morale is being dragged down by the threat of mass redundancies of journalists whose only crime is to work hard and strive to reach massive audiences with quality journalism each day.
“The thought that any media business can afford to shed hundreds of talented journalists to secure its future makes you wonder what sort of future that will be.”
NUJ general secretary Laura Davison said: “Yet again, journalists at Reach must bear the burden of huge cuts announced by the organisation, leaving many understandably worried about their future at the company. With every restructure and redundancy round, experienced journalists leave behind already-stretched teams left to manage burgeoning workloads.
“It is time Reach considers a long-term sustainable strategy that recognises the value its journalists bring in contributing to its success. Their ability to pivot and adapt to meet company needs in recent years has been evident, yet these significant redundancies proposed show no regard for this. The company’s leadership must recognise that endless job cuts serve as a threat to the standards of journalism at the publisher, impacting the journalism audiences deserve.”
Morley added: “The latest strategy to the digital promised land does come with some attractive pledges but we are not sold that the route taken to achieve it is necessarily the right one. We are sceptical that the way to develop the group’s distinctive and popular brands such as The Mirror, Express, Daily Star and a host of major regional titles is to cut a swathe through their ranks of specialist writers.
“Who will bring the scoops, who will provide the colour and who will do the analysis and comment that readers expect from such important titles in the fabric of each nation? Merging of resources and introducing identical newspaper pages between brands to eliminate ‘duplication’ risks switch off from the buying public.
“Stretched workforces are being significantly cut again so how much human scrutiny will those AI assisted stories really get and what will the workload of remaining journalists be like?
“And the new pivot to online subscriptions surely requires investment in more and better quality to create an overall product that will entice new and loyal readers. We hear a lot from the company about the need to be ‘authoritative and authentic’ but the hole where redundant journalists were appears to be filled by the chatter from AI.
“There is so much at stake here and so many questions raised before we have even delved into the detail. The NUJ will be going through these proposals line by line and engaging to the full in formal consultation to minimise the number of redundancies made. We will be pressing the principle that wherever possible, those who want to stay in the business can do so, while those that want to leave are facilitated to do so without quibble.
“There is a difficult road ahead, but we will be working hard to find the best and most effective outcome and solutions for our members and, ultimately, the business.”