The Chronicle bosses announce new ‘streamlined’ model – Sports journalists facing redundancy | OneFootball

Back in the day, The Chronicle was where Newcastle United fans got pretty much all of their news.

At its height, The Chronicle (Newcastle Evening Chronicle) used to sell as many as 200,000 copies per day.

In the modern day, those numbers reported to be more like 5,000 per day for The Chronicle, with online reporting the main focus. Whether that is Newcastle United, general news and so on.

This is reflected across the country, the same for pretty much every other football club and the media that covers them.

The massive profits easily generated via printed newspapers now a thing of the past, back in the day local newspapers had pretty much free rein on local sport and news.

The days of the massive Chronicle offices down the Bigg Market are long gone as well, only a relatively tiny number still employed, compared to what was the case in the past.

Reach are the owners of The Chronicle and indeed the vast majority of other local newspapers in the UK, as well as owning national titles such as the Mirror.

Massive cuts in the numbers working for local and national newspapers (and their websites) already, now Reach are reportedly (see below) set to cut things further where Sports journalists are concerned.

Interesting to see how The Chronicle looks in the future. As you can see below, the direction of travel appears to be more and more towards centralising things, teams of writers reporting across various newspapers/websites.

Difficult to see how things will improve, with seemingly ever more articles on regional ‘local’ newspapers/websites  written by journalists working elsewhere, then you have AI set to be used to put out more and more of the output across the media in general.

With ever collapsing printed newspaper sales, you also have to wonder how long The Chronicle and others can continue in that format. Elsewhere, many printed local newspapers are no longer still going.

Press Gazette report – Friday 11 July 2025:

‘Reach has proposed major changes to how its sports journalists work, merging many of its national and regional teams in England into a central hub with around 50 redundancies anticipated.

Reach sports journalists were told on Wednesday of the restructure, through which many will begin to write across any of its national and regional titles in an attempt to end writers in different newsrooms covering the same events.

A team of specialist journalists will continue to be dedicated to the “most popular” football clubs and certain specialist sports like F1 and tennis but will write across Reach brands instead of for one title.

A small number of journalists will still be dedicated to one national brand but report into the same sports structure. Reach publishes the Mirror, Express and Daily Star national titles as well as regional brands like the Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo and Chronicle Live in Newcastle.

According to the National Union of Journalists, the number of dedicated correspondents covering Liverpool FC, Manchester United and football clubs in London is set to be halved.

Chief digital publisher David Higgerson said in a statement: “We are changing the structure of our sports teams to reduce duplication and work more efficiently, while ensuring dedicated resources to deliver exclusive content, rooted in the communities we serve.

“For example we will continue to have dedicated writers covering our most popular football clubs, as well as for a range of specialist sports including tennis, golf, and F1, delivering content across our portfolio.”

The NUJ said the company plans to make around 50 roles redundant and 104 roles have been placed at risk. Content editors are expected to be cut from 26 to 16.

Sports print production is also included in the shake-up, with sub-editors to be more than halved according to the NUJ.

Head of sport Jake Murtagh told staff in an email, seen by Press Gazette: “The aim is to better serve our existing audiences in print and digital through a streamlined model, and reach new ones across multiple platforms, to set us up for a successful future.”

NUJ general secretary Laura Davison said the union is “deeply concerned by the impact these cuts will have on staff workload and morale. Either fewer staff will be expected to do more work, or Reach is seeking to use AI to fill the resulting gap.”

Reach last year launched its Guten AI tool which can “re-version” articles written for one Reach website for any of its other brands in house style, instead of a journalist spending time creating a slightly different version of the piece.

Davison continued: “The replication of content across Reach’s titles will mean less localised coverage and less media diversity. Ultimately, this results in a poorer product. The distinction between different Reach titles will blur with replicated articles less tailored to readers’ interests. An AI mimic would be no substitute for skilled journalists.

“Reach is a profitable company – and this is down to journalists’ hard work. Instead of cutting jobs, Reach should invest in its staff and quality journalism.”

The Reach NUJ Group Chapel said in a statement that members were “dismayed” by the redundancy plans. “These talented teams provide an incredible service to the public in their sports coverage and production in print and digital and among the National and regional titles in England and Wales…

“The nature of such large-scale cuts is devastating for those directly impacted but also their colleagues throughout the company. We are now inevitably entering a period of great uncertainty for our members in sport and for their livelihoods.”

The chapel statement continued: “The outline rationale provided by the company is to create a new structure that brings regional and nationals’ operations together to ‘optimise performance’. We think that may be at the expense of local knowledge and diversity of content. The elephant now in the room is what role does AI have in the company’s thinking that such a pared down structure may be possible? This is something very much on our agenda to determine.

“The other key concern at the outset of this redundancy collective consultation is workload – and what this might look like for those that remain after the cuts have been made. Our members were already reporting the difficulties in maintaining the levels of work demanded so we will be ensuring that due regard is given to the safety of these plans.”