Investment in digital media and a move to new premises will mean more layoffs at the Telegraph Group. In a letter to senior print managers, CE Murdoch MacLennan said all the right things: 24-hour news across a range of platforms, massive opportunities offered by the digital information revolution, readers migrating online and customized news.
Integration of the paper’s print and online staffs into a 24-hour newsroom would, he said, result in some job losses as the group aims to eliminate duplication of effort from the business. MacLennan: “The prize of our move, and of our huge investment in the future, is to become the cutting-edge group in the United Kingdom—fully integrated, customer-focused, efficient and profitable.”
Ninety journalists took buyouts at The Telegraph in January as part of a cost-cutting exercise to pay for new printing presses.
—Also this week, Times Online launched Comment Central, a blog led by editor Daniel Finkelstein - a distant nod to Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free, if far less ambitious. It also announced a new commuter-friendly downloadable daily business briefing called The Note in PDF format.
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—UK’s Telegraph’s New Design; Pares Down Ad Units