Guardian's 'editorial cake' will not be sliced up

Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger has denied on Twitter that the paper's "digital-first" strategy will lead directly to job cuts.

Instead, he says the size of the Guardian's "editorial cake" will remain the same, but the money will be used in different ways.

Earlier he tweeted: "In Moscow, just caught up w Twitter. It's not t 'digital-first' bit tt leads 2 job cuts. Actually hiring 2 do tt. It's t broken old model."

Interviewed by Steve Hewlett on BBC Radio 4's The Media Show yesterday, Rusbridger said the paper needed to recruit more multi-media developers: "We need to get more developers in with digital skills and we are losing money so we will need to reduce the cost base. Yes, we will need to lose some people and will try to do it in a voluntary way."

Pressed by Hewlett on the scale of the job losses, he added: "We will need to lose significant numbers but we don't need to do it tomorrow. We can do it over the next couple of years and have a civilised conversation about that."