According to this Radio NZ article three of her newspapers: The Manawatū Standard, Nelson Mail, and Timaru Herald will see their newsroom staff numbers cut from seven reporters to three. Taranaki Daily News and The Southland Times would keep four reporters each.
“All existing ‘news director’ roles would be disestablished. One editor would remain at each publication, but the people filling those roles would be expected to write news.
“Stuff proposes to counterbalance job losses by establishing a new regional team made up of a group regional editor, four news directors and nine breaking news reporters.
“One Stuff journalist who did not want to be named told Mediawatch the restructuring plan had come as a blow for local reporters already struggling with their workload.
“He did not believe a new regional team with a focus on quick turnaround breaking news would ease that burden. ‘The pressure isn’t in breaking news. The pressure is in going out and doing local stories. That’s the pressure, and that’s where the cuts are being made.’
“Staff were crying in the office when they received the outline today, he said.
“The Marlborough Express is not affected by the proposal. Its newsroom is currently funded through the Public Interest Journalism Fund.
“A Q&A section attached to its proposal says Stuff has no plans to cut back the frequency, circulation or distribution of its regional papers, and that they will retain the same amount of content.”
It pretty much bears out what we’ve suspected; that Ms Boucher’s media company is in trouble from outgoings exceeding income, despite all the millions of Taxpayer dollars she has received from the Jacinda government to be its unofficial Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. Advertisers are turning away while Wokeists, Iwi Elites and Jacindanistas who love what she churns out are clearly not contributing enough koha. The company ceased making its accounts public after Ms Boucher’s takeover in May 2020.
According to retired journalist and former Dominion editor Karl du Fresne on his blog, “The impression is that Stuff is planning a retreat to its Auckland and Wellington metropolitan bases, but even there its future hardly looks bright. One sign of the company’s decline is that the Audit Bureau of Circulation no longer publishes Stuff’s newspaper sales figures. The reason can only be that they are so dire as to be embarrassing.”
I can’t see the point of shedding tears for any job losses in the mainshit media whether local or nationwide. These people chose to take the coin of a corrupt government and thereby declared war on a section of Kiwi society.
“You made your bed, now lie in it”…
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving outfit. There are those who say that the $1.00 that she paid was $0.75 too much. I live in the Far North and we suddenly started receiving “The Bay Comical” a/k/a “The Bay Chronicle” in our letterboxes again after a significant absence. I really do wonder if it’s happening as a ploy to claim increased circulation/readership. I have said before, even the paper is poor quality and does not make good firelighters
All these so called journalists should stop crying and realise there is an opportunity to fill the gap left by Stuff and start reporting the truth about local issues. But they are too used to being spoon fed by their editors, managers and the government. Problem for them is, the economy is tightening so that means the gravy train is running on thinner and thinner gravy.
They may be more worried about their rancid mortal coils than jobs. Once their shilling for the evildoers’ misdeads is exposed, they may have to join the flight out of the country that that their benefactors will be on.