Daily Telegraph Fantasy Guardian

In our house we greatly enjoyed an article in Saturday's Daily Telegraph, which began:

"Senior staff at the Guardian and Observer newspapers are facing the prospect of job losses after unveiling the integration of their reporting teams."

The reason we enjoyed this is because it isn't true. Now read on:

"The publisher of the Guardian and the Observer newspapers finally revealed details of a far reaching restructuring plan yesterday which involves the integration of all editorial staff, creating a single team serving the two newspapers and the guardian.co.uk website. Senior staff will have to compete for the head of department jobs. A number are expected to leave under a voluntary redundancy scheme which has so far seen over 20 journalists depart the group since last April."

Hmm. Scratches head. So does the phrase "facing the prospect of job losses" in the first paragraph actually refer to the voluntary redundancy scheme that has been in place for more than a year and been made use of by a tiny percentage of the Guardian and Observer's 850 journalists? It's hard to tell. But that opening paragraph does look kind of, well, stuck on to make the story seem more sexy - and more damaging to the Guardian - than it actually is. And why does the piece quote the bit from Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger's statement on integration about the paper moving to a new building at Christmas, and not quote the bit that went...

"We've done this without any reduction in headcount. It is important that news organisations retain quality and trust while being at the forefront of the digital revolution."

...which appears in this report headlined "Guardian announces integration plans, no layoffs expected"?

The reason all this cause such amusement in my household is that my wife is one of the senior Guardian executives who negotiated integration with the paper's staff and union and therefore knows rather a lot about it. This closing paragraph prompted particular mirth:

"The move echoes similar changes sweeping Britain's news organisations. The Telegraph Media Group has led the way and already appointed heads of business, sport and foreign news to manage the editorial team across both titles and telegraph.co.uk."

It's true that the Telegraph integrated more quickly. But that's because, unlike senior management of the Guardian, it doesn't trouble itself with ensuring that its staff's futures are secure. It just sacks people when it feels like it. And as for leading the way into the online future, not everyone looks at it quite that way.

Comments

[Tim Footman]

I just wonder if the poor sap who wrote that actually believed it.