Targets to Reach for - The Addition

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A journalist on one of Reach’s national publications has spoken of the strain the growing demands of editors at Reach is putting on staff. These outlets tend to have small staffs but are being asked to publish evermore stories. Quantity, not quality, increasingly seems to be the name of the game.

Reach owns national brands like The Mirror and Daily Star and local brands like The Manchester Evening News and the Live set of websites. Last week, HoldTheFrontPage got hold of an email written by someone they refer to as “a senior Reach editor”. This person called on his troops to produce “at least eight stories a shift” to help improve traffic.

Press Gazette confirmed that that email came from Graeme Brown, who runs Birmingham Live. I’ve been told his edict was specifically about the brand he runs. A further email from Paul Rowland, Editorial Director (Live Network) following newsroom feedback read:

We’ll be expecting more volume and are more likely to be focusing on a higher number of quick turnaround stories. On a live or weekend shift we might expect a reporter to produce closer to eight stories, whereas on a normal reporting shift it might be closer to five

Reach Hacks “Not Allowed to do Journalism”

All three of Reach’s nationals have high targets. The Mirror‘s is thought to be well over 300 stories per day, and that’s just for the news and showbiz teams combined. The increased churn is understood to working for The Express, but less well for other Reach brands.

“We’ve got this AI tool,” the source explained. “It spews out stuff that a five-year-old would write. You put a link into it from another Reach site… and it will reword it into your style. But it then takes another 15 minutes to put it into English.” Some staffers take on a so-called “power hour”, in which they produce up to 15 stories in that manner.

“It’s killing us all” the source added. “We’re not allowed to do journalism any more… If we get to do one or two original stories a day it’s a fucking miracle.”

Morale sounds great.