New Zealand newspaper publisher APN News & Media has begun outsourcing editorial production work, a plan that will be extended to five daily and three weekly newspapers by year end, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
The changes, effective from yesterday, mean that news editing and layout operations at the New Zealand Herald, the country's biggest daily, and a string of regional dailies will be done by an outside contractor, APN deputy chief executive Rick Neville said. "I'm confident readers won't notice the difference'' in the papers' editing and design, Neville said.
APN’s titles include the New Zealand Herald, the nation’s largest daily, provincial dailies the Northern Advocate, Hawke’s Bay Today, Bay of Plenty Times, and the Daily Post. Other titles affected are weekly giveaway the Aucklander, the Listener magazine and weekender Herald on Sunday.
The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union that includes New Zealand journalists, however, said the move will erode the quality of news coverage because stories will be handled by copy editors not familiar with local issues.
Starting Sunday, 20 subeditors will work full time at contractor Pagemasters New Zealand at a site 20 minutes from the paper's editorial offices. By year-end, Pagemasters will employ 45 editing staff to edit the seven newspapers - nearly 30 fewer than the newspapers employed.
While there "will be some mistakes in the first three months ... we have got away to a flying start,'' Neville told AP. He said benefits included lower costs from fewer staff, better leveraging of content across titles, more efficient editorial production and "doing a lot more'' with costly "knowledge technology.''
APN is half-owned by Irish businessman Tony O'Reilly's Dublin-based Independent News & Media PLC, which publishes 175 newspapers and magazines worldwide. It also runs radio stations and outdoor advertising sites in Australia and New Zealand. Pagemasters is a subsidiary of the Australian Associated Press news agency. Newspapers owned by O'Reilly in Ireland also recently announced an editorial outsourcing strategy.
The regional dailies in New Zealand are likely to have standardised pages for world news, national news and sports, as well as feature sections for topics from gardening to motoring. Local news content will remain unique, with an editor at the local papers determining news priorities. Each newspaper also will have a designated chief sub-editor at the production centre to "maximize ... accuracy of the production."
Neville said the outsourcing programme's benefits include lower personnel costs, more efficiency and "doing a lot more" with costly "knowledge technology."
