Former Guardian foreign correspondent Maggie O’Kane and music editor Michael Hann are among the latest high-profile journalists to leave the paper under an ongoing voluntary redundancy scheme.
Guardian and Observer NUJ father of chapel Brian Williams is also leaving the company, taking early retirement under the scheme. He has been with The Guardian for 27 years.
Press Gazette understands that Guardian News and Media is on course to hit a target of cutting 100 editorial jobs under a three-year cost-saving scheme which was launched just over a year ago.
Parent company Guardian Media Group made an operating loss of £69m for the year to the end of March 2016. A target has been set hit break-even within the next two years.
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O’Kane (pictured top) has been with the Guardian for 25 years and her current role is multimedia editor, investigations. She was previously editorial director of Guardian Films.
O’Kane won plaudits for her reports from Sarajevo during the Yugoslavia civil war and reported from numerous other conflicts around the world subsequently.
She began her reporting for The Guardian on a freelance basis from Bosnia in 1992 where she exposed ethnic cleansing and the existence of a concentration camp housing 2,500 starving Muslims and Croats.
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Hann was music editor of The Guardian for 11 years and joined the title five years before that.
Press Gazette understands that all the editorial departures under the current cutbacks have been voluntary and the terms on offer are seen as generous. Compulsory redundancies are not currently on the table.
A Guardian News and Media spokesperson said: “We want to thank Maggie, Michael and Brian for all their important work and dedication to Guardian journalism over the years. We wish them all the very best for the future.”
Picture: The Guardian
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