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January 8, 2016

Johnston Press journalists warned of yet more staff cutbacks across the group

By Dominic Ponsford

Johnston Press journalists have been warned in a company-wide memo to brace themselves for yet more job cuts.

The move comes after the "Newsroom of the Future" initiative last year which has seen dedicated district reporters merged into pools covering multiple newspaper titles.

Johnston Press has been cutting staff across the group, merging titles and editors and closing offices. At the end of last year it closed at least 18 newspaper titles (including the Musselburgh News, pictured).

In a memo to staff Jeremy Clifford, who was made Johnston Press editor in chief last month, said: "As part of our workings we have looked at every opportunity to find ways of making improvements in the way we work and any efficiencies to minimise any impact on staff…

"We have reorganised some of our former publishing units, to better reflect the geography of our brands, as (chief executive)Ashley Highfield outlined at the end of 2015.

“We expect the review of our newsroom structures will lead to a reorganisation for some of our teams as well. In some cases that will mean a reduction in team sizes.

“We have identified a number of areas where job reductions will come from and how that may affect different teams directly. Later today a number of announcements will be made about some of those proposals."

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