Trinity Mirror introduces new publishing operation
Trinity Mirror has unveiled significant changes to its publishing operations as it moves towards an integrated approach to creating and sharing content across the group.
The new publishing model has been devised by a team of Trinity Mirror’s senior editors with key features to include:
- Closer working between the national and regional titles, with more content being shared across all of Trinity Mirror’s newspapers and digital platforms.
- Greater emphasis on the production of digital content, including breaking news, pictures and video.
- An enhanced focus in the regional titles on the curation of community content, which has already proved popular with readers.
- A shared content unit based in Liverpool, producing high-quality, non-local material for all of Trinity Mirror’s regional newspapers and digital channels.
- The creation of a number of new roles at the national titles for writers and photographer/videographers, plus a number of new digital roles.
These changes will result in a net reduction of approximately 40 editorial roles and consultation with affected staff has already begun. The company hopes to achieve any redundancies by voluntary means as well as redeploying staff, where possible, to newly-created roles under the new publishing operation.
These new editorial positions include digital roles in some regional newsrooms to support the rapid expansion of Trinity Mirror’s digital ambitions, including the rollout of e-editions.
A shared content unit team is also being established to produce “high-quality, non-local material” covering areas such as health, travel, fashion, food, entertainment and reviews.
Across the seven-day Mirror operation a network of staff writers and photographers are being recruited, in addition to a number of new digital roles.
“Our newsrooms have made great progress in embracing the digital world in recent years but, essentially, our processes have remained print-led,” said Neil Benson, Editorial Director.
“This new approach is a bold, imaginative step that will enable us to become a fully-fledged, digitally-focused news operation, and brings together for the first time the best of our regional and national journalism.
“It is never easy to make these decisions when it affects our colleagues in this way but we must re-engineer the way we work if our journalism is to thrive in the future.”
Lloyd Embley, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People, said: “The new roles will significantly enhance our output while creating a closer working relationship with our regional colleagues.
“This is a huge step forward for the Mirror and the One Trinity Mirror initiative as we take a more unified approach in creating and sharing first-class content across the group.”
The new approach will be underpinned by investment in technology, including the ContentWatch editorial system and the Escenic web publishing CMS, which are being rolled out across Trinity Mirror’s newsrooms.