Not a nice situation to have hanging over you...

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Archant 'gagging' journalists, says NUJ

Dominic Timms
Wednesday February 8, 2006

Journalists facing job cuts on two regional newspapers claim they have been stopped from running an advert in the titles highlighting their plight.
Staff on the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News said they were prevented from running the ad, which began with the line, "Firm with ?32m profits to axe staff ... pay cuts also threatened. It's not a very nice headline is it?".

The ad went on to highlight the risk to up to 17 editorial posts - mainly subeditors - and the threat of wider pay cuts that could affect up to 60 staff.

Archant, formerly Eastern Counties Newspapers Group and owner of the titles, has been accused by the National Union of Journalists of gagging editorial staff and attempting to "hide the truth".

Barry Dennis, the managing director of Archant Norfolk, refused to run the ad, according to the union.

"It is an extremely worrying state of affairs when journalists are gagged from telling their own story," said the NUJ general secretary, Jeremy Dear.

"What Archant is doing at the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News is shameful and this attempt to hide the truth proves that they are indeed ashamed."

Journalists said Mr Dennis initially refused to run the ad because it referred to the company's profit figure, but later still refused to publish it even if they agreed to drop the reference.

"When the company is planning to axe up to a third of jobs in a single department, we feel we have a right to put our case to our readers and ask for their support," said Pete Kelley, an NUJ chapel committee member.

Mr Dennis said both papers had published stories about the potential job cuts when they were announced last week, including comments from the NUJ.

"To say they have been gagged and readers not kept informed is not correct," he said, adding that the company had yet to decide on the final number of job cuts and described union claims of pay cuts for up to 60 as "no more than scaremongering".

Posted By: Jim Nasium on February 8th 2006 at 12:04:49

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