Brighton’s weekly Sports Argus paper is to close, as Newsquest, the company which runs it, also cuts 10 jobs from the south coast’s evening title’s staff as it opts to produce just a single edition each day, rather than the current two.
In a separate development, it has been announced that Belfast is also to lose its Saturday evening sports paper.
The Brighton jobs cuts follow 15 subbing positions being axed at the Evening Argus earlier thisyear.
Newsquest Sussex managing director Martyn Willis said the proposed cuts were a reaction to “the current economic climateâ€. A 30-day consultation process has now started with staff over the proposed cuts.
Don Mackglew, assistant organiser with the NUJ said: “Management is looking for 10 voluntary redundancies in editorial and a number elsewhere such as sales or advertising.”
The cuts in Brighton are the latest in what appears to be widescale cut backs across regional newspapers. Last month, sportsjournalists.co.uk reported around 60 posts being cut across Newsquest regional newspapers, including the Northern Echo, and at Johnston Press’s Midlands group.
It was announced today that Ireland’s Saturday Night, one of the world’s oldest sports papers, is to close after 114 years. The final edition of ISN will be published on July 26. Circulation had fallen from 100,000 to 9,000 and convinced its owner, Independent News & Media, that continued publication was uneconomic.
Belfast Telegraph editor Martin Lindsay said: “The ISN was part of the very fabric of this province in its heyday but, unfortunately, over a period of years readership dropped to the point where publication of the title could not be sustained.”
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