Blog: Newsquest's Herald primed for a strike

In an e-mail, a reader describes cutbacks roiling The Herald group -- three Scottish dailies that are part of Gannett's Newsquest division in the United Kingdom. The budget reductions come "despite record levels of profits last year, on the back of three rounds of redundancies (buyouts) that have resulted in a one-third drop in editorial staff over two years,'' my reader says. "The papers are literally being destroyed -- steeply declining circulation, unfeasibly tight budgets in all areas, internecine internal politics, staff replaced by casuals, then pressure on managers for hiring casuals."

The Herald staff has already been out on strike to prevent compulsory layoffs once, the reader notes -- and it looks as if they might do it again, the All Media Scotland blog says. My reader's e-mail concludes: "It has been very interesting reading about the U.S. experience on your blog. We get a shadow of Corporate's policies, but we feel them far more deeply. In fact, we are still plodding lamely down the discredited Information Center path, hampered by poor software and a badly botched roll out of new production systems."

[Image: a recent screenshot of the Herald's homepage]