Ian Chadband, the chief sportswriter, and two sports desk sub-editors at London’s Evening Standard, are among 300 staff at Daily Mail & General Trust – including the Mail and Mail on Sunday – to be made redundant in the latest round of newspaper job cuts.
Earlier this week, the Daily Mirror announced 11 job cuts, though none of these are believed to affect the sports desk.
Chadband was not available for comment, though he is understood to be consulting his advisers over terms.
Widely admired for his writing as well as his charm, Chadband has been at the Standard for a decade, where his work was regularly short-listed in the SJA British Sports Journalism Awards, winning Sports Feature Writer award with the Standard, while before that he took the Sports Story of the Year when at the Sunday Times.
A former chairman of the British Athletics Writers’ Association, Chadband was noted for always enthusiastic and hard-working manner at trackside, or ringside at major boxing events. He had previously worked at PA Sport after beginning his career on the Coventry Evening Telegraph.
“The worrying thing is, if they can make someone like your chief sportswriter redundant, who is next?” one colleague said.
A report yesterday on MediaGuardian.co.uk stated that 6 per cent of the workforce is being cut across DMGT’s Associated Newspapers, which also publishes two freesheets which compete with the Standard, Metro and London Lite.
Last week, it was announced that Chris Anderson, the Mail‘s associate editor in charge of news and sport, was to leave. The Mail has yet to announce a replacement for its head of sport, Tim Jotischky, who has been recruited as deputy editor at the Sunday Telegraph. Lee Clayton, the paper’s sports editor, is widely tipped for the promotion.
The ad departments of the daily and Sunday titles have been merged, and other cuts are to be focused on Associated’s backroom support services.
The latest cuts at the Mirror come as the group announced a 20 per cent fall in ad revenues.
More on sports desk job cuts:
Martin Johnson latest to leave the Telegraph
Fraser quits Independent to return to Middlesex
Express to cut more than 70 jobs
Publishers pull the plug on two football blogs
Harry Harris to leave Express
Sports desk at centre of Telegraph concern
Brighton’s weekly sports paper to close
NUJ chapel protest at Independent‘s sports cuts
Mossop and Phillip leave Telegraph
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