Friday 18 February 2011

Northcliffe offers new staff fixed term contracts


Recent pronouncements by Daily Mail and General Trust executives suggest they don't see a long term future for its Northcliffe Media regional arm within the group and are open to approaches from other regional publishers.

Now Northcliffe has caused speculation among staff by advertising for journalists on short term contracts.

Industry website holdthefrontpage is advertising two posts at Northcliffe's Lincolnshire Echo for a news reporter and a sports writer/sub on six-month fixed term contracts.

The jobs are to replace two staff members who have left and it is the first time anyone can recall the Echo offering any job on such a basis. The Echo has a circulation of around 18,500 and is considered one of Northcliffe's best performing evenings.

Within the regional press, short term contracts are more usually offered to those working on special projects rather than journalists taking full time staff jobs. The ads may be taken as another sign of uncertainty about the future of the regional press.

There has been speculation that smaller circulation regional evening titles will go weekly or bi-weekly and come out on the days which attract the most advertising.

One source says that plans for several small circulation evenings to go weekly are being seriously considered by Northcliffe.

2 comments:

The Troutcatcher's Apprentice said...

A case of 2+2=17 I think Jon. And hardly 'news' in any case as those jobs have been on HTFP since 2 Feb.

Jon Slattery said...

Dear Troutcatcher,

Thanks for your comment. You obviously don't think anything fishy is going on.