A target of 31 voluntary redundancies at The Times has yet to be reached this week, meaning that some staff will be receiving the ‘tap on the shoulder’for compulsory severance, a News International insider has told Press Gazette.
The redundancies are part of News International’s widespread cutbacks, which will see some 100 editorial staff lose their jobs across The Times, Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World.
Those taking redundancy at The Times include: Hannah Betts, who writes a beauty column; Burhan Wazir, who was recruited four years ago and writes in The Knowledge; Alan Cotts from the foreign desk; reporter Stewart Tendler; sub editor Michael Murphy; reporter Michael Horsnell; magazines design editor Graham Bell and designer Sue Toll.
David Altheer is taking voluntary redundancy after 26 years at the paper. He was one of the paper’s two News International staff association reps and was also father of the Sunday Times NUJ chapel.
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Some 20 journalists are to go at the Sunday Times including veteran reporter Maurice Chittenden – who is expected to return on a casual basis.
It is understood that 20 journalists are going from The Sun, including regional correspondent John Askill, consumer affairs editor Charles Rae and crime writer Ian Hepburn.
Another 30 are going from the News of the World, but the paper has strongly denied a report in The Independent that its star reporter, ‘fake sheik’Mazher Mahmood and Neville Thurlbeck – who broke the Beckham affair scoop – were looking to take voluntary redundancy.
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The NoW described the story as ‘categorically not true.”
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