Gilligan: freelancing for Standard
The Evening Standard axed 13 journalists’ jobs last Friday as it announced a reshuffle that includes signing up former BBC Radio 4 reporter Andrew Gilligan.
Veteran journalists Colin Adamson and Richard Holliday are understood to be among those made redundant.
Deputy City editor Patrick Hosking and City Insider columnist Damien McCrystal have also gone, as well as eight production journalists and a photographer.
The Standard declined to reveal its total journalistic headcount, but a source said the cuts were less than 5 per cent of the editorial total.
Gilligan, who quit the BBC in the wake of the Hutton Report and has already written several articles for the Standard, has been confirmed as a freelance feature writer based at home and abroad. This week he was reporting for the London daily from Baghdad.
Jason Beattie, formerly with The Scotsman, has been taken on as political correspondent. He joins Whitehall editor Paul Waugh, who went to the Standard last month from The Independent.
An internal reshuffle, also announced on Friday, includes the appointment of David Taylor as executive news editor, Hugh Dougherty as assistant news editor, Neil Sawyer as night news editor, Isabel Oakeshott as political correspondent, Ben Leapman as home affairs correspondent and Rebecca Smith as health reporter.
Last year, operating profit at Associated Newspapers, which also includes the Mail titles and Metro, fell from £80m to £70m. Circulation at the Standard was down 1 per cent.
Andrew Gilligan returns to broadcasting next month with a 30-minute documentary for Channel 4 about the British intelligence services. The programme is part of a new current affairs strand, 30 Minutes, which will air on Saturdays at 6pm.
By Dominic Ponsford
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