Accusations and acquisitions.

It was reported today that as of 28/03/2010, Trinity Mirror plc will have completed the purchase of Guardian Media Group Regional Media, the company in charge of a huge swathe of newspapers and online 'products', as which I believe we're supposed to refer to websites as now, including flagship north-western daily the Manchester Evening News - a paper launched by the Guardian group in 1821. 'Fair enough', you might say, but you're not me, and I don't say fair enough. This will get a bit long, so grab a cuppa.

Apparently, GMG Regional has been making next to no pennies* for the 12 months December '08 to '09, so the guardian (no pun intended) angel of Midlands local media, Trinity Mirror plc, has swooped down and very charitably offered to 'release GMG from their long-term printing contract'. Aaw, how sweet. According to the figures (see below for all useful links) the MEN has been somewhat carrying GMG Regional for a little while, but staff have already relocated to different premises thanks to centralisation which has been happening across the board for around two years now.

Meanwhile, Guardian Media and News has been offering voluntary redundancies for several weeks now, and is reportedly making a daily loss of an estimated £100,000. This all sounds a little familiar to me, although it clearly doesn't to Sly Bailey.

Let me tell you a story. It's pretty long, but that doesn't mean you can get away without reading it all. I'll only pin you down and read it to you and do that thing to your eyes until Beethoven makes you sick and...oh, wait...

Once upon a time, in a land not so very far away - on this very bus route, no less - I used to work for Trinity Mirror on a couple of weekly newspapers covering a reasonably large area. While I can't actually say where thanks to Auntie Libel, let's just say it was on a series of papers under the Midlands and North group - including the Liverpool Echo, Birmingham Mail, Birmingham Post and Coventry Telegraph. Again, I must stress it wasn't actually any of these papers, which I know are quality newspapers written by some of the hardest working people I know. It was just in a similar vein. Okay? Glad we've cleared that up.

The year was 2008. It was a heady, hot summer and- wait, we can't begin like this. Who am I kidding? It's the Midlands. You know what the summers are like here.

I was starting out as a cubby with no NCTJs - but we know how that story branches off, so I won't repeat myself. All was well, except that big nasty thing being poked with sticks and vaguely called the credit crunch was emerging, and we noticed that fewer and fewer houses were being advertised in the paper, and fewer companies could afford to advertise anything, full stop. Even still, we ignored it and hoped it would go away. It didn't. As you know, newspapers are hit pretty hard by recessions - the first in and the first out, as I was told at the time. I left to go back to Uni.
On my return for working over the Christmas break, I noticed there were fewer staff day by day. Centralisation was pulling a lot of the subs kicking and screaming to the flagship offices and print works in the cities. While this was reasonably pleasant to not have some jobsworth breathing down your neck about the unconventional spellings of towns in the 'local area' - (see what I did there? No...probably not. I thought it was funny, and that's all that matters) - while this was pleasant, it also meant there were fewer people to make tea for you. And, you know, check your work.
ANYWAY. Long story short, an awful lot of fuss was being kicked up over Trinity Mirror not really having an awful lot of money. 'Voluntary' redundancies were flying about, claiming some of the best reporters, photographers and sub-editors I have ever met. Those who didn't take them up would be sacked anyway. Centralisation. Cutting down on costs. Fucking up lives.

And so the story continues. Papers closed. Small, local papers often serving a tiny but incredibly loyal readership. A greater online presence was launched. Fat lot of good that is to the little old lady reading The Weekly Giant Cheque And Kittens who probably thinks the 'internet' is northern fly-fishing slang. Trinity Mirror closed papers and removed people's livelihoods, jobs and quite often, the only trade a lot of writers had ever known - as well as removing the readership from the print product loop - which is most arguably The Point of newspapers.

And now, as if by magic, they've acquired £44.8 million in order to ACQUIRE the GMG Regional - 32 newspapers and several associated websites. I can't help but wonder how many of my ex-colleagues wages have contributed to this amount, and just how many 57 pences you need to save in order to justify closing some people's only lifeline on local news. This may well just be business as usual in a business environment, but it smells like dirty money to me.

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Details concerning the GMN are available here: http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/537516.php

Some regarding the take-over of GMG and potential further centralisation are available here: http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/537511.php

And finally, from the horse's mouth: http://www.trinitymirror.com/2010/02/trinity-mirror-to-acquire-gmg-regional-media.html

*Including gross assets of £8.7 million.

(I ought now to stress that all opinions expressed in this blog are mine alone - I'm just one out-of-work journo having a whinge about a company or two. It's not worth suing me for my JSA, honestly.)

Concerning the job hunt.

As I previously stated, all my training, interest and knowledge is in the media field - not that I can claim to know a great deal or have the most experience possible - but I'm far from dense. I can generally fit myself to a job specification quite happily, or just reword the advert to make it sound like I'm what they're after. I tend to use agency websites because I find them the most useful, and I use industry ones on a weekly basis to try to hunt for the most applications I could send.

Sometimes, I use national job websites, such as - oh, let's call it 'The Protector' newspaper's jobsite. I like to read The Protector because it makes me look intelligent on public transport and, well, I like to read the supplements and do the crossword. Anyway. I have found that a lot of people in my position find the website imposing and somehow, full of grown-up's jobs which we feel far too young and underqualified to begin to comprehend.

The following is a selection of real jobs I have found using The Protector's jobs website.

Generally the mysterious and confusing world of graduate jobs is filled with "Sales" positions, and The Protector's jobs site is no better. I did not go to University for four years to sell old ladies on the unprotected electoral roll information or advertising space. Next.

Ooh, this looks good: a "TV, Online and Radio Editorial Campaign Executive". You know me by now, and I call a spade a spade - and this spade is a PR Officer if ever I saw one. This is just one example of The Protector's love of calling a spade a handled garden-related digging device.

In the Creative sector, an "Information Architect". I can vaguely recall my web coding tutor banging on about this, and I didn't understand it then, and certainly don't now. (Sorry, Simon. You really were dreadfully boring, and far too old for that haircut. Sorry again.) As far as I can work out, it's a web developer with a nicer title, but to me those are two very separate words that have no business being together. Next.

Also in the Creative sector, a "Senior Actionscript Developer". Unfortunately, this isn't the superhero position I had hoped it was, and seems to be something far geekier and more fun, judging by the amount of acronyms in this badboy: "...be familiar with Zinc and or SWF studio and have knowledge of database driven systems using XML & SQL and PMT." I may have made that last one up.

Finally, my favourite find: "Director - Audiences and Media Division". The role is being advertised at the Very Famous Art Gallery on the south bank of a Very Famous river, somewhere - I assume - in between the residences of Ratty and Mole. Anyway, being a fan of the VFAG myself, I decided to have a proper look at the advert, just to see what they were after. The following is a direct quote from the ad:

"Make the audience journey through the VFAG's collections more textured, driving strategic audience engagement, particularly with those whose cultural preferences may yet be unformed."

Yep, I made that face too.

I can only assume making an audience journey more textured would require blindfolding some poor unsuspecting tourists, dragging them through a damp corridor lined with woodchip and crackling strip lighting, smelling vaguely of pot pourri and despair - filled with broken down boxes and dead flies - before dumping them in a back room between a Matisse and a Hockney, in front of a "challenging" and "subversive" massive sculpture of the VFAG owner's genitalia, whipping off the masks and yelling "What is this?! Tell me what your cultural preference is now, huh?!"

I like to think that the role is available to whomsoever can figure out what the fuck any of that actually means. Maybe you win a prize, too.

I would really quite like a job now, thanks.

A summation of June-January.

All businesses, workplaces, University and personal names have been changed. Except London, because it's pretty big. I'm not stupid enough to get libelled at this stage.

You can consider this an introduction of sorts. There is so much more to this story than education, but it's a good place to start - and no-one's that bothered about all the David Copperfield details really, are they?

I graduated from The University in June 2009 with a PG-Dip in Journalism, on top of my undergraduate degree: a joint honours BA (Hons) in Journalism and Media Studies from the same institution. I had completed several months of work experience at The Weekly Ennui in Hometown during my degree, and was employed there as a trainee reporter on both The 'Ennui and The Sister Paper prior to my Post Grad. I re-enrolled at The University to better myself and get some training under my (real vintage) belt which Tricorn News - the company in charge of The Papers - couldn't provide for me. I was chomping at the bit, ready and raring to go. The course had provided me with all sorts: rudimentary shorthand (mainly practised with how to swear and write amusing words), a few more people skills, greatly improved interviewing skills and a genuine new-found (and perfectly logically held) fear of Big Estate in University Town.

In all honesty, I had returned to The University in order to escape the jobs market for nine months as well as to gain better and further qualifications. Silly girl.

This move has since turned out to be a bad one for various reasons which I will now skim over in the briefest of details.

- Jobs. There aren't any. Well, that's not entirely true - there are some, but the majority are on very small town newspapers with little to no future prospects, and are mainly editorial positions to replace the prematurely grey former madman who somehow flung together The Despair Express and Star with his merry band of trainees too scared to use adjectives for the first few months. So, yeah. Jobs are a major problem.

- ...That's about it, actually.

- Interviews. I have had two (count them) since graduation in the summer. One was positive, fun, exciting, in London in June and would have been perfect - a music reporting role! My inner 16 year old reviewer was rejoicing. The only downside was that it was only an internship, and an unpaid internship at that, but I had plans for that. The other slight issue that may have swayed the interviewers against me was being half an hour late after I lost my sheet with directions on it down the tube - not in any romanticised gust of wind blasting through the tunnels - I just dropped it, like a twat. So I was lost, in east London, but it may has well have been Mozambique, as I got fantastically lost and had my only panic attack of the year in the street. Nice. I didn't get the job, in case you were waiting for another punchline.

The second - Hometown is getting a branch of Popular Coffee Shop! How exciting, I thought, I could definitely do that; it's waitressing, not rocket science. The interview in October goes well; I am one of around 20 applicants, and there are around 15 positions available. This is in the bag, I thought. Interview goes well: I am punctual, charming, can work all the hours available and more, and just sycophantic enough for them to raise an eyebrow at my pious "employ me, you idiot" smile. I got a call a day or so later - I didn't get it. Why? I'm not available for enough of the required hours. I put the phone down before I got violent.

So that's it, really. That's where I am so far.

I am currently putting my mind to other things I can do with my currently redundant skills, other than writing long rambling notes in shorthand, forget to transcribe them, then find them a few days later and find they have rapidly become ancient Greek. I am working on my first novel (ha, I've always wanted to say that) and investigating into publishing, which I think looks quite interesting and not beyond my skills at all. I will keep you updated.