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Gannett petitioned over Newsquest at US AGM


NUJ REPRESENTATIVES took their campaign for better resources and conditions at Newsquest directly to the publisher’s US owner, travelling to Virginia to call for Gannett and its shareholders to take into account the views of its 800 UK employees. Amy Fenton (pictured),


chief reporter at the Mail in Cumbria, and Chris Morley, NUJ Northern and Midlands senior organiser, went to Gannett’s annual meeting in McLean, Virginia. As Morley owns a small number of Gannett shares, they were both eligible to question the Gannett board and speak in front of shareholders, executives and employees. Fenton made an impassioned plea to the audience and explained how she had crossed the Atlantic to ask shareholders to consider Gannett’s “incredibly talented and dedicated reporters”. She said: “I’ve travelled all the way from England to be here today because, amid all the uncertainty and confusion facing our


industry, I wanted to act as a reminder that you have some incredibly talented and dedicated reporters, here and in the UK, who work their socks off, but ultimately we do that because we love the papers we work for and the communities we serve. “I’m here to ask you to bear in mind those committed journalists when considering any changes to the company.” Morley highlighted the


NUJ’s concerns over a hostile takeover bid of Gannett by hedge fund-controlled newspaper company MNG Enterprises. Gannett shareholders voted


to reject MNG Enterprises’ board nominees, which followed an unsolicited offer


to acquire Gannett for $12 a share in January. MNG’s failure to secure seats on Gannett’s


board reflects a significant setback in its efforts. Fenton warned shareholders against allowing MNG to make “reckless and savage cost-cutting simply for short-term profits” and highlighted the poor pay the company’s UK journalists were enduring.


LIVERPOOL FC FANS TO GET NEWS SITES Reach, which owns the Liverpool Echo, is launching two fan websites for Liverpool Football Club following the team’s Champions League win against Tottenham Hotspur. Ten journalists will work for both Liverpool.com and LFC Stories.


Relocation, relocation, relocation


THE FINANCIAL TIMES has moved back to its old home of Bracken House in the City of London 30 years after it left to relocate to Southwark Bridge. The paper previously spent


30 years at Bracken House, a grade II listed building near St Paul’s Cathedral, from 1959. Meanwhile, the Press


Association, which has been rebranded as PA Media,


completed its move from London’s Victoria to new offices in Paddington Basin. PA was based at in Vauxhall Bridge Road, Victoria, since 1995 after moving there from Fleet Street.


Channel 4, which is to shift


its base from London to Leeds, has said the majority of staff will take redundancy rather than leave London. No senior executives will move to the Leeds base.


SCOTSMAN PUTS UP METERED PAYWALL The Scotsman has gone behind a metered paywall after its owner JPI Media said that it would trial subscriptions because of falling ad sales. Readers can now access five articles for free each week or pay £3 for the first three months when they subscribe, rising to £8 a month thereafter or £72 annually.


Cookson gold story stars at NUJ science award


THE WINNER OF the 2019 NUJ Stephen White award for best communication and reporting of science in a non-science context was Clive Cookson, the FT’s science editor (pictured right). The winning entry by Clive, who has been a member of the union for 40 years


was ‘Scientists discover the origins of gold in space’. The prize was presented by the NUJ’s northern organiser Chris Morley


(pictured left) at the Association of British Science Writers’ annual awards. NUJ member Stephen White was head of communications at the British Psychological Society for 25 years and died suddenly in 2010.


DEAN MOVES FROM ES TO GRAZIA MAGAZINE Rosamund Dean, the acting deputy editor of ES Magazine, is moving to Grazia. She has been at the Evening Standard’s weekly magazine since October. She was previously acting deputy editor at both Stylist magazine and Grazia, after six years as entertainment director at Red magazine.


theJournalist | 05 “


I’m here to ask you to bear in mind those committed journalists when considering any changes to the company


Amy Fenton Chief reporter at the The Mail, Cumbria


inbrief...


BREXIT PUTS PEOPLE OFF THE NEWS More than a third (35 per cent) of UK people are actively avoiding the news with a majority (71 per cent) of them citing Brexit as the reason, according to this year’s Reuters Digital News Report. The proportion of news avoiders this year is up 11 per cent on 2017 when the question was last asked.


BULFORD JOINS REACH AS NON-EXECUTIVE Anne Bulford, the BBC’s former deputy director general, has joined Reach, publisher of the Mirror, Express and Star, as a non- executive director. Bulford, who left the BBC in the spring, is chair of Reach’s audit and risk committee and a member of its remuneration and nomination committees.


AMY FENTON


TREVOR ASTON PHOTOGRAPHY


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