Attack on journalism

A letter from Mike O`Brien
MP for North Warwickshire and Bedworth
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Dated 13.9.8

To Mr Steven Brown
Trinity newspapers

Dear Mr Brown

I understand that you are planning 70 redundancies in the West Midlands with job losses on the Coventry Telegraph (and its Warwickshire edition), along with the Birmingham Post, Birmingham Mail, Sunday Mercury and all associated weeklies.

Some of your titles have been run down over a number of years by Trinity Mirror. For example the Bedworth Echo now has no office in the town. Some fine journalists try to keep in touch from a distance. The Telegraph used to dominate news in North Warwickshire but cutbacks mean that other newspapers have grown as the Telegraph circulation has fallen. Again the remaining journalists do a very professional job but they are not supported by managers. These cuts have got to stop at some time.

Now members of staff in the various newspapers are being asked to reapply for a diminishing number of jobs. Writers on the titles are being re-named Multi Media Journalists which means fewer people will be asked to do more tasks.

For example in Coventry there are up to 20 job losses with reporters who remain being asked to not only file copy but take some of the photographs, put headlines on their stories, create blogs, operate video equipment and contribute stories to our online publication.

This is a serious attack on news, journalists and journalism in theWest Midlands. It undermines the ability of my constituents to get the news.

I ask for an explanation for these cuts and I ask you to reconsider them.

Yours ever


Mike O`Brien MP