Borders newspaper group about to 'disappear'

by EWAN LAMB

Journalists and photographers of a certain age will have noted with some sadness that the only remaining 'Tweeddale Press' offices in Selkirk and Berwick-on-Tweed are due for closure in the latest restructuring exercise by the local publishers' current owners JPI Media.

And according to the Companies House file for Tweeddale Press (TP) the company, which was formed in 1939, is set to be dissolved in the not too distant future.

Just another of the names set to disappear completely from the newspaper scene only some 20 years after the so-called Borders 'minnow' was engulfed by the tentacles of the burgeoning Johnston Press.

News of the impending office closures where the Southern Reporter and Berwick Advertiser staff are based was broken this week by media website Hold The Front Page.

According to their story JPI Media plans to shutter 11 newspaper offices – citing the increased amount of remote working during the coronavirus lockdown in its decision. Apparently a recent survey revealed “many” of its staff expressed a preference for an increased element of home working.

The bases listed for closure are Alnwick, Aylesbury, Banbury, Berwick, Coleraine, Louth, Mansfield, Melton Mowbray, Selkirk, Stornoway and Sleaford.

Hold The Front Page reports that in a message to staff company chief executive David King said: “As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, one of the changes faced by many of us has been the sudden switch to working from home. We have all had to adjust to this new way of working, some of us whilst juggling work, childcare and home-schooling, as well as a host of other changes to our normal lives.

“As I have said before, it is a testament to everyone’s hard work and resilience that we have been able to remain so productive during this time. As you know, we keep our property portfolio under review as a matter of course and over the last few years have reduced our footprint significantly, offering flexibility to our employees while still providing quality local news and information to our readers and audiences online.

“Like many businesses, the changes enforced by the current crisis have caused us to carefully consider both our approach to how we work and our future property requirements."

The march of time has seen the printing of the Borders papers switched to locations far away as the clunking presses here fell silent.

And editorial premises have already been radically downsized in line with the parent company's spiralling level of debt. Now, with editorial staff operating from their spare bedrooms the former Tweeddale Press papers will be without a visible presence in any of the local towns.

Little more than 20 years ago almost every Borders burgh had its own Tweeddale Press office. But the likes of Duns, Dunbar, Hawick, Jedburgh and Kelso soon witnessed the withdrawal of  office facilities.

It was in those premises that many a budding reporter or photographer cut his or her teeth before going on to 'greater things' in the world of journalism.

Johnston Press's takeover of the Borders group resulted in a catastrophic fall in its fortunes in the space of two decades.

When Johnston's bought the TP from the Smail family in 1999 for £7.799 million the prospects for the Borders papers seemed bright with promises of additional investment in the newly acquired titles. But before too long cost cutting rather than extra cash became the norm.

The family-owned TP was employing 122 people in 1997 with an annual wage bill of £1.79 million, an obvious benefit to local economies.

And in the acquisition year Johnston Press announced a profit of £65.9 million, an increase of 29% on 1998. The takeover of the TP was described in Johnston's annual accounts as "a strategically important purchase".

The weekly circulation figures for the Borders papers were recorded as Southern Reporter 16,851, Berwickshire News 5,359, and Hawick News (acquired separately from local proprietor Robert McNairn) 7,134.. The Hawick News has already disappeared from the Scottish newspaper scene.

The facts and figures set out above makes the Johnston Press-led decline of the Tweeddale Press and other UK newspaper groups all the more spectacular in such a short time span. It surely cannot all be down to technological advances.