A strike at Tindle Newspapers? You cannot be serious. This isn't one of the remote regional behemoths renowned for cost-cutting. It is Sir Ray Tindle's family-owned outfit.
But it appears that journalists employed by his North London and Herts division in Enfield will begin a series of two-day strikes from next Tuesday.
The nine-strong National Union of Journalists chapel have decided to take the action in opposition to the group's policy of natural wastage.
Members say more than a third of editorial staff have left without being replaced, meaning that key positions are now unfilled.
"Just three reporters are churning out nine newspapers every week," said the chapel father, Jonathan Lovett. "The current Tindle business plan threatens to let once award-winning newspapers dwindle and die."
They are the Enfield Advertiser, Edmonton Advertiser, Winchmore Hill Advertiser & Herald, Enfield Gazette, Barnet & Potters Bar Press, East Barnet Press & Advertiser, Edgware & Mill Hill Press, Hendon & Finchley Press and Haringey Advertiser.
The journalists claim that these titles are now inferior products because of the staff cuts.
Tindle Newspapers issued a statement "expressing regret" at the NUJ's decision, explaining that the board had made "an impassioned plea" to staff "to work together to try to come up with new revenue-producing ideas to stem the centre's rising losses in the recession."
It would not be withdrawing its "non-automatic replacement policy for journalists who leave by natural wastage."
Here's a key sentence in that statement: "Staff were told that no new people could possibly be taken on nor any pay increased since any such action would be irresponsible given the ongoing losses."
Ongoing losses? Surely not? Well, according to Press Gazette, the Enfield titles are losing around �200,000 a year.
Three of them were launched in March last year with Tindle proclaiming that they "are our answer to the future."
He added at the time: "I'm convinced there is still a great future in print weekly papers. I don't think the public is going to be satisfied with only the internet."
In spite of his Enfield losses, Tindle was singing the same song on Wednesday morning on Radio 4's Today programme in which I also appeared and said that the migration of classified ads from print to online had destroyed the business model of local newspapers.
Not at all, said Tindle, arguing that there is a still a big local advertising market. "Local papers have been here for 200 years," he said. "And they'll be here for another 200 years."
Tindle's enthusiasm for papers may be admirable. He is regarded as a newsprint newspaper saint. But talking optimistically doesn't change the reality (the reality of big losses). Indeed, on the same programme, the realism was evident from within his own camp.
Karen Shepherd, managing director of Tindle Newspapers' flagship title, the Farnham Herald, started off by saying that local people still called into their office to place their ads.
Then the interviewer, Rory Cellan-Jones, remarked: "Ten years ago it would have been a much bigger business."
"Oh huge, yes," replied Shepherd. "There's a massive difference between now and then."
Exactly. I like Tindle. I like newspapers. And I like them in print. But I can see that their days are numbered.
This is not a case of emphasis, that clich�d difference between a glass half full (Tindle) and glass half empty (moi). It is simply about hard-headed realism. The net is the future, print is not.
I am often described as a doom-monger, a facile criticism. My analysis of the decline of newspapers is based on figures going back 50 years. It is further informed by the accelerating decline since the rise of the internet.
I know there will be printed papers around for a long time. What concerns me is that journalists won't be.
I want to see the growth of relationships between a skilled professional journalistic cadre and concerned citizens.
To that end, the defence of journalistic skills and the need to provide valuable public interest information remains paramount.
I accept that Tindle has previously avoided making journalists redundant. I also accept that he has tried to go against the grain by launching titles while others have closed them.
Most importantly, I think he has done what almost no other newspaper owner has done by accepting relatively small profit margins and, consequently, avoided the cost-cutting of the bigger proprietors.
But he is guilty of failing to foster web-based journalism. And his misplaced faith in the future of print has led him into the same cul-de-sac as the large chains - hence the strike.
Sources: NUJ/Press Gazette/HoldTheFrontPage
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/apr/15/tindle-group-downturn
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