Grey Cardigan rages at Johnston Press

Press Gazette's famed columnist Grey Cardigan, the embodiment of a curmudgeonly down table sub on a regional newspaper, has really lost it and gone for the jugular of Johnston Press. Grey in a posting on his Press Gazette blog blames Johnston's one time bumper profit margin of 35 per cent for wrecking the regional newspaper industry. He says acerbically: "When the time comes to record the demise of this great game, that will be identified as the point that it all went tits up." Grey's outburst was prompted by the news that Trinity Mirror is imposing a pay freeze on its staff. The move has gone down badly with the NUJ which claims it is an insult to staff. The union is not mollified by the £720,000 a year Trinity chief Sly Bailey saying she will not take a bonus. The NUJ announced today it will be holding a "jobs summit" on 24 January to discuss the growing employment crisis in the media. Daily Mail & General Trust revealed today that it is in the process of cutting 400 jobs across the company.