Reach chief executive Jim Mullen has written to staff saying “I have kept my word” on job cuts at the group as parts of the business enact redundancies.

Mullen previously wrote to staff at the start of 2024 to say that, after making more than 700 job cuts in 2023, the business planned to end 2024 with “the teams that we have starting the year”.

However recent weeks have seen team restructures and consequent redundancies at titles including the Sunday Express, Scotland’s Sunday Mail and the Irish Sunday Mirror.

In each case the Sunday titles have been moved into a seven-day merged print and digital operation, with a resulting loss of jobs.

Sunday Express editor David Wooding has left Reach as part of the changes, The Guardian has reported, and Sunday Mail editor Lorna Hughes has also elected to leave according to an email seen by Hold the Front Page.

The NUJ Reach group chapel said the recent redundancies “concern more than two dozen talented journalists leaving the company”.

“Our members are mindful of Jim Mullen’s words as we entered 2024 about staff not having ‘one eye over their shoulder’ after a corrosive year of hundreds of lost journalists’ jobs.

“Yet that is exactly what is happening currently, particularly if you are in a print-facing role…

“The constant threat of cutbacks, particularly among the national titles, is a major source of demotivation and drain on morale. This group chapel calls on the company to make 2025 a redundancy-free, growth year at Reach.”

Separately on Friday, Daily Mirror editor-in-chief Caroline Waterston emailed staff saying the staff of the daily newspaper will be merged with that of celebrity magazine OK!. Waterston, who was previously editor of OK!, added the brands “will remain completely distinct” and that she did “not expect this change to result in any reduction in roles”.

Reach CEO says company will end 2024 with more staff than at conclusion of 2023 restructure

On Friday November 22 Mullen emailed staff saying “external commentary” on the company was “noisy, distracting and, to be honest, a bit lazy at times”.

His commitment for 2024, he said, “was about growth, that there would be no more large-scale cuts and that the size of the overall business was about right for the year ahead.

“I have kept my word and have not changed this commitment.

“And I’ve kept my commitment to being upfront with you all about the fact that our business will have to evolve, adapt and continue to change to better suit the changing preferences of our audiences, their chosen channels and our advertisers.”

Last month Reach announced it would be hiring 60 new editorial staff with a focus on “audience writers” and “general assignment journalists” who will cover breaking stories and trending topics. Mullen said this meant the company will conclude 2024 “with more jobs than we had at the conclusion of the 2023 restructure programme”.

“This is not to disparage or dismiss the feelings of colleagues whose roles have been impacted by changes that are part of the running of our business…

“As CEO, I understand that it is my role to make decisions that are not always popular but that I believe are right for the business. I recognise that, at times, it means I won’t win any popularity contests, but I will never shirk from being up front and honest with you.”

In its statement earlier in the week, the NUJ Reach group chapel said the 60 new roles were “of course welcomed.

“But our members cannot avoid the feeling that in some way sacrifices are being made in print – where three quarters of Reach’s revenue still comes from – to fund changes the company wants elsewhere. This is no reflection on anyone being recruited to Reach, but does lead to speculation on the wisdom of the actions being taken.”

There has been a move away from standalone Sunday editorial teams across the news industry. Last year News UK proposed a merger of the Scottish Times and Scottish Sunday Times and Mail Newspapers brought the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday “much closer together”.

Several dedicated Sunday operations continue, however, including The Sunday Times, The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph, as well as FT Weekend and i weekend.

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Despite the fact it’s clinging on by a thread, ‘journalism Twitter’ proved it is still alive (though perhaps not well) when a story broke online earlier this month. As Press Gazette and Hold the Front Page reported, Reach PLC journalists are being asked to write up to eight stories a day – prompting a storm of criticism of the move.

Defending the move in an email seen by Press Gazette, the editorial director of Reach’s Live network said its sites cover major breaking news events by making sure “every possible crumb of audience interest has been spun out into a breakout that finds readers by doing every angle, for every platform”.

I spent two years as deputy digital director for OK!, a brand owned by Reach since its Express and Star takeover in 2018. In the months before I decided to leave, quitting in March last year to take my chances as a freelance, a similar push was ongoing. I had my own misgivings and was, on reflection, struggling with burnout from trying to keep up.

When a major news event occurs, there is obviously a huge appetite for the latest updates and yes, there are usually multiple angles to explore. But flooding a website with tens of stories on the same topic certainly doesn’t do your readers (or staff) a favour.

The constant push for fresh articles is hard to contend with and often makes previous pieces, which could be performing well, out of date. This could mean work completed just hours before is essentially redundant and removed from a homepage. In this situation, a ‘new’ piece is often anything but, as the first couple of lines will contain the latest update while the rest is a rejig of background information. Duplicated content becomes inevitable, which (as no editor should need telling) is a huge no-no.

Putting your audience first means thinking about what they want and need. Do 25-plus articles on one news event fit the bill? Or would they be much better served by two or three breakout pieces and a round-up of the key moments?

There are other questions to ask yourself when commissioning, which get slowly pushed down the list when volume is a priority:

• “Is this story right for our audience?
• “Why is it performing well elsewhere?
• “How could we move it on and do something original?”

And there’s no time to reflect on what hasn’t performed well. Could you make tweaks to improve SEO? Is there a better quote for the headline? Would a different lead image make it more enticing?

Standing out online is tough, but it’s even harder if you’ve created a deluge of repetitive articles across multiple websites. As an editor, it’s also incredibly frustrating when your team does land a brilliant exclusive only to see competing versions pop up on other sites within your network minutes later.

I’ve been a journalist for over a decade and mostly on staff for digital-first publications or ones trying to focus on building an online audience. I’ve worked through plenty of industry-wide shifts, most notably the now-infamous ‘pivot to video’ of 2015, various scrambles for traffic from social media platforms, the podcast boom and the ongoing rise in popularity of newsletters.

During many of these, as both a budding reporter and then an editor, I managed to expand my own skill set, from gaining experience in front of the camera and hosting live events to launching new verticals, video franchises and newsletter products. But a pivot to ‘more, more, more’ gives early-career journalists none of these opportunities.

As one former Reach journalist tweeted, “a 7-3pm shift means writing at least a story an hour, sometimes more… Sometimes I didn’t take a proper lunch break as I felt pressure to hit 8 stories and was consistently stressed about page views”..

Most stories on a shift like this will be rewrites of news lines already out there. There is very little time, if any at all, to think creatively or strive for originality – two skills that have always been important in journalism, but are even more so as we face up to the rise of AI. Brilliant writers – who are capable of going out and finding news, or thinking of fresh approaches – are left trudging through burnout-inducing shifts, as are their editors.

With no digital sub-editors and reams of content to check, I felt my own standards slipping. I know I published stories with headlines that could have been ten times better, and dropped the ball on picking the best angle for something because the strategy was to commission multiple pieces and hope some of them performed well.

I didn’t have time to give proper feedback or pass on knowledge. As toe-curling as they were when I was a twenty-something reporter desperate to impress, frank conversations with my editors about which of my stories hadn’t worked provided some of the most valuable feedback I’ve ever received. They also prepared me well for my articles and comment pieces being discussed, scrutinised and debated online.

Both reporters and editors stuck in the churnalism cycle will inevitably leave and seek out more fulfilling opportunities. Because, despite the strategies some legacy media operations are determined to stick with, it is possible to do things differently and succeed.

Tortoise, founded in 2018 and dedicated to producing “slower, wiser news”, has won multiple awards for its podcasts and recently entered talks to buy The Observer. With local news at a crisis point, in July the Guardian highlighted the work of journalists determined to revive it – and other independent outlets, often publishing in newsletter formats, have sprung up since.

It is possible to do better by being more ambitious, and thinking differently can achieve results. But it’ll never happen if staff aren’t given time to try.

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Press Gazette has ranked the biggest UK and US news publishers on Instagram with four achieving follower-counts above ten million.

We looked at the news publishers from our top 50 UK and US website rankings to compile our new research.

Two publishers – BBC News (27.8 million) and CNN (20 million) – are above the 20 million mark. When Press Gazette last ranked publisher Instagram accounts (in June 2023) BBC News had 7.4m followers on the platform and CNN 4.2m.

The top two on Instagram are followed by the New York Times (18.2 million) and People (13.6 million).

In comparison, only one news publisher (Daily Mail) from the two top 50 lists has topped ten million on Tiktok, the newer platform.

Ladbible does not feature in the latest ranking because it has it has fallen out of the list of the top 50 news websites in the UK. It currently has 14.1 million followers to its biggest Instagram account. Cosmopolitan, The Daily Wire, The Verge, NME, Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit similarly have fallen out of our top 50s so do not eapp

Excluding the impact of Ladbible’s removal, the top seven remain the same – but The Guardian (5.8 million followers) in eighth place has overtaken Buzzfeed and Unilad (both 5.7 million).

The fastest-growing Instagram account over a two-year period was the New York Post, increasing by 74.7% since 2022 to 1.2 million.

It was followed by Healthline Media (up 60% since 2022 to 1.3 million) and UK tabloid the Mirror (up 57% to 441,000).

Four news publishers on our list saw their Instagram followings decline since June 2023: Buzzfeed (down 7%), sister publication Huffpost (3% to 3.2 million), Unilad (down 2%) and The Daily Beast (down 2% to 452,000).

Since June 2023 only, the Mirror was the fastest-growing (up 45%) followed by ITV News (up 34% to 512,000) and the New York Post (up 32%).

But the follower count for BBC News increased the most in absolute terms (2.1 million) since last year - almost double the next largest growth seen by Fox News (up 1.2 million to 9.4 million).

Four added at least one million followers to their counts - also including the New York Times and People.

The percentage of people saying they use Instagram for news has risen from 2% in 2014 to 15% this year in 12 key markets surveyed by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (UK, US, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Ireland.

It remains behind Facebook, Youtube and Whatsapp in importance but has overtaken Twitter/X and is still ahead of Tiktok and Snapchat.

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Reach is rolling out an AI tool that enables its journalists to quickly rewrite stories which have already appeared on other sites within its network.

Since late January the Mirror, Express and Liverpool Echo publisher has been holding weekly drop-in training sessions for staff on how to use its new in-house AI tool, Gutenbot.

A significant amount of content on Reach’s network of local and national news is rewritten or reposted from sister sites. Rewrites enable the company to get more traffic out of the same content without duplicating it.

However, having large amounts of content on a site which is exactly duplicated elsewhere on the web is believed to negatively impact Google search rankings, a major source of traffic for many publishers.

Guten, as Reach’s new bot is referred to by employees, speeds up what is known internally as “ripping”, whereby one Reach site rewrites an article from another.

Rather than rewriting an entire article, Guten makes a selection of changes, for example swapping in synonyms or re-phrasing passages, without changing the meaning of the text.

But staff have expressed concern that articles written using Guten are not always flagged to readers as such, which they worry may have a negative effect on audience trust.

The company told staff in January that Guten “utilises AI to free up time spent on repetitive tasks” and that where already in use it had “supported an increase in page views and article volume, as well as [helping] to break news quicker than competitors”.

Guten appears to have been trialled at the Mirror and OK! from November. It was already in use by at least 20 Reach titles by the time the rest of the company was invited to training in late January.

What is Guten, or Gutenbot, Reach’s editorial AI co-pilot?

Reach describes Guten as “a Reach-owned AI product” that assists editorial staff by generating “titles, headlines, lead text and body copy”. Press Gazette understands that as well as rips from Reach content, Guten is used to rewrite wire agency copy and, in some cases, police press releases.

Guten users are presented with an input panel, into which they paste the text they want to rewrite, and an output panel showing the new version. Any changes made by Guten are highlighted, and any errors in those changes are to be reported back to the company by the user.

Error categories to be reported back to Reach include missed entities or quotes – things that were mentioned or said in the original story but omitted from Guten’s version – and hallucinated, i.e. fabricated, entities or quotes.

After making any necessary amendments, Reach asks all journalists publishing a story written with Guten to add the URL to a spreadsheet so the company can keep a database of all its AI-involved articles. Guten also registers the differences between the story it suggested and the version that got published in order to inform its future edits.

Reach’s editorial co-pilot resembles the bot used by AI–assisted reporters at Gannett-owned regional news publisher, Newsquest, which also features an input-output display and requires a journalist to check the generated copy.

[Read more: How Newsquest and its seven AI-assisted reporters are using ChatGPT]

At least some of the Reach stories created with Guten feature a note at the end saying: “This article was crafted with the help of an AI engine, which speeds up [the publication]’s editorial research and applies it to article templates created by journalists in our newsrooms. A [publication] editor reviewed this content before it was published. You can report any errors to [publication email address].”

One AI-assisted story on MyLondon appears to be based on property sales data and reports on the seemingly routine sale of a flat in south London. Another, on OK!, is a version of a story about a Strictly Come Dancing result which appeared on other Reach websites. A third covered actress Christina Applegate’s appearance at the Emmy Awards.

Reach chief executive Jim Mullen told the Financial Times in February last year that the business had formed a working group tasked with figuring out how generative AI could be implemented within the group. That news came on the heels of a round of redundancies at Reach, and 2023 ultimately saw more than 700 jobs cut at the company.

Reach brand My London is currently advertising for a dedicated AI content editor role. The job description says the successful candidate will “manage content created in partnership with Reach’s approved AI systems, developing teams and ensuring audience targets are met”.

What do staff think of Reach’s AI tool?

Two Reach journalists told Press Gazette their teams had been instructed to collectively produce five stories per day using the tool.

“It’s ramped up in the last few weeks,” said a reporter on one title. They said that toward the end of a recent shift they were asked by an editor to quickly produce several Guten-assisted articles, and that the editor alluded to quotas they had been set for AI article production.

“We all hate it so much because the way it writes articles is just so verbose, so shit,” said the reporter, although they added that it had improved.

They said: “When it works, it does work well, because it writes it really, really quickly. But obviously, it’s just so depressing – it’s the definition of a robot taking your job. It can write an article for you in five minutes.

“Mainly they use it to syndicate other Reach articles. I just don’t understand why they don’t have a system that means Reach articles are somehow syndicated through the CMS by the reporter who’s first written it anyway.”

The journalist added that while there used to be a disclosure at the bottom of articles that were written with the assistance of generative AI, those notes no longer appear. Press Gazette could not find any articles published in the last three weeks featuring the disclosure that used to appear.

Press Gazette understands the Reach NUJ Group Chapel has written to company management to complain about the apparent removal of the disclosures.

Another Reach journalist, working on a national title, said the company was enthusiastically promoting Guten among staff.

The journalist was not particularly concerned about the bot’s quality, saying Guten “just flips synonyms and makes it more house style-y depending on the title…

“It’s largely okay. And then you’ll just get one that’s given you a totally incorrect headline or it’s completely missed the story, so it has to be rewritten or edited again.”

As well as its other tasks, Guten writes image captions. A separate Reach staffer told Press Gazette it had memorably described a couple in a photo as a “plate of eggs and beans”.

But the national Reach journalist said Guten had “certainly saved time, and has proven to be extremely useful in our ever-shrinking teams at weekends, etcetera, when we just need content live and quickly”.

A third Reach reporter, this one at a local title, was more sceptical: “Obviously there’s a lot of work that still goes into reviewing the copy, making sure it’s accurate, making sure that quotes aren’t being fabricated – and then doing all of the usual sort of page furniture stuff that you have to do on the back end so that things look good on the front end.

“So it seems like the company basically wants us to use it as part of what seems to be their strategy to just pump out as much content as possible.”

They said that the apparent removal of AI disclosures from stories “is a continuation of diluting the local brands that allegedly we want to protect and we want to create quality journalism for, and instead replacing it with easily churned out copy that anyone could write for any website or any blog or any Facebook profile, rather than actually spending the time building contacts, getting out into the community – all of the things that make good journalism”.

Neither of the Reach Local Democracy Reporters with whom Press Gazette spoke had received Guten training, although one said they knew their copy had been ripped using it.

What has Reach said about its AI articles?

Asked for comment, a Reach spokesperson told Press Gazette: “Like many media businesses we have been exploring how to best use AI tools to support our journalists in their day-to-day work.

“Following a year of very cautious and controlled testing, we are now rolling this out across more newsrooms and we will continue to work closely with all our teams in navigating the risks and opportunities.”

They did not respond to specific questions about AI article production quotas or whether AI disclosures had been dropped from articles.

In an earlier note to staff, Reach said Guten exists to make employees’ jobs easier.

“Gutenbot is in no way designed to replace editorial staff,” the company said.

“Yes, it generates text, but editorial review will always be required to verify the accuracy of that text… It’s best to think of Gutenbot as a junior reporter whose draft copy tends to require some checks and tweaks by an experienced editor.

“The need for editorial to review AI rewrites is absolutely crucial, especially when it comes to quotes, given the possible legal risks and ramifications involved.”

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The head of news and entertainment at ITV’s This Morning is moving to OK! as editor of the weekly celebrity magazine.

Charlotte Seligman said she hopes to help the title “be to publishing what This Morning is to television”.

OK! magazine was one of three celebrity magazines, together with New! and Star, to have been bought by Mirror publisher Reach from Express Newspapers in February 2018. Reach closed Star last autumn.

During Seligman’s eight years at This Morning, the programme’s news and entertainment teams have merged and big interview scoops under her “get there first” approach have included the last two Prime Ministers, Hillary Clinton and David Beckham.

Seligman said: “Although I’ve loved my time at ITV, this was too good an opportunity to turn down and I can’t wait to get my hands on OK!

“Leading the agenda with big exclusives is what I do best, and there’s no reason why this time next year OK! can’t be to publishing what This Morning is to television.”

Seligman will report to Reach’s magazine editor-in-chief Caroline Waterston who joined the publisher earlier this year to look after OK! and New!

Reach said she has been “implementing a number of changes in view of a larger multi-media strategy”.

Waterston said: “It’s a real coup for us to be bringing Charlotte to OK!

“She is a journalist of the highest calibre who will bring with her a wealth of experience, contacts and drive, and I can’t wait to work with her to bring OK! into the future and make it a true cultural icon again.”

Waterston has been looking after OK! alongside deputy editor Rowan Erlam after the magazine’s previous editor-in-chief Kirsty Tyler left in April.

OK! had an average circulation of 126,017 in the first six months of this year, a 19 per cent drop year-on-year.

In July to December 2017, before it was bought by Reach, the title was selling 165,583 copies. Between 2000 and 2009 the magazine was regularly selling 500,000 to 650,000 copies.

Seligman started her career as a junior reporter at the Jewish Chronicle and then the now-defunct News of the World as a features writer, before moving to Reach (then Trinity Mirror) to work in the same role on the Sunday People.

She spent ten years as features director and deputy editor at Best magazine before moving to This Morning.

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Cosmopolitan has seen the biggest circulation drop among women’s magazines so far this year, new ABC figures reveal.

The monthly magazine’s average circulation fell by 32 per cent year-on-year to 206,510 copies in the first six months of 2019.

Publisher Hearst said this drop could mainly be attributed to a trial cover price increase from £2 to £2.50 in the first three months of the year.

Among weekly women’s titles OK! magazine – now owned by Reach – was the hardest hit, falling 19 per cent year-on-year to 126,017.

Monthly fashion title Red fared the best, growing 3 per cent to 175,920.

The only other paid women’s titles to grow circulations were Elle UK, where publisher Hearst said new editor-in-chief Farrah Storr is “driving the next phase of its development”, Harper’s Bazaar, Tatler and Vogue.

TI Media, which publishes Chat, Pick Me Up, Woman, Woman’s Own and Women’s Weekly, said it had removed these titles from multi-pack promotions in the past year.

“While bigger packs inflate sales due to the price advantage they can offer, when these packs alone are available they limit choice and do not serve those consumers who wish to purchase their favourite magazine only,” the publisher said.

Women’s lifestyle and fashion magazine circulations for the six-months to the end of June 2019 (ABC):

Women’s weekly magazine ABCs for the six-month period to the end of June 2019:

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Photographs of Prince George sat on a police motorbike in the private grounds of Kensington Palace were not in the public interest and so breached the young royal’s privacy, press regulator IPSO has ruled.

The Duchess of Cambridge and her then two-year-old son complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that the photos of him published on 25 May on Express.co.uk and Ok! online were in breach of the Editor’s Code of Conduct under Clause 2.

The royals said that they had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the private grounds and had given no permission for photographs to be taken.

The photographer told IPSO he had been walking through Hyde Park on his way to the gym when he came across armed police who were waiting for the arrival of members of the Royal Family by helicopter.

He said that a large crowd had formed when he noticed Prince George, his mother and police officers. He admitted using a long lens to capture the image from more than 200 yards away.

The royals told IPSO that there are only a limited number of vantage points from which individuals within the grounds might be seen, and even then it is difficult with the naked eye because of the distance.

They added the fact that they might have been visible to some individuals outside their home did not remove their reasonable expectation of privacy and that no public interest was served by publishing the images.

Both the Express and OK! denied the images had shown the complainants in a private interaction.

They said the police officers were photographed while on duty, and it was important for the public to see how members of the Royal Family interacted with public servants, particularly when the officers had been “commandeered for a three-year-old’s entertainment”.

They said that as an heir to the throne, Prince George was not in the position of an “ordinary child” – he was a subject of great public interest – and that as public servants, the public has a right to know what members of the Royal Family are doing.

They said the press should not be prevented from publishing harmless photographs of them, taken within view of the public, which show something out of the ordinary.

IPSO’s Complaints Committee did not accept that any public interest had been served by the publication of the images, which they said “simply showed Prince George playing on a police motorbike”.

Any general public interest in the activities of the Royal Family was also inadequate, according to IPSO, “particularly in the case of Prince George given that the Code requires an exceptional public interest to over-ride the normally paramount interests of children under 16”.

The press regulator upheld the complaint and ordered both sites to carry its adjudication, running to more than 430 words each.

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All women's weeklies except for one new launch lost circulation in the first half of 2015, according to ABC.

Richard Desmond's (pictured, Shutterstock) magazines Star (down 30.1 per cent year on year to 148,390) and OK (down 27.6 per cent to 200,015) were the worst performing.

ACH Publishing's OMG magazine – which has today been merged with Love It – launched in February and recorded an average circulation of 52,609.

Women's weekly magazines, average circulations, January-June 2015

Titles in the women's lifestyle and fashion sector performed better, with Women's Health recording a year-on-year circulation rise of 8 per cent to 124,740.

Hello Fashion Monthly was audited for the first time and recorded an average circulation of 91,069.

Candis was the worst performing title in the sector, down 20.3 per cent to 121,918.

Women's lifestyle/fashion magazines, average circulations, January-June 2015

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Northern and Shell has launched an extension of OK! magazine called OK! Mum and Baby.

It will provide news about celebrities and their babies through a new section on the OK! website, an app and a bi-annual magazine that will come with the existing title.

In addition, the company plans to offer an OK! Mum and Baby club card, allowing holders to obtain discounts and offers.

It also plans to offer events inviting to readers to meet celebrities and their babies to seek parenting advice.

Kirsty Tyler, editor of OK, said: “OK! magazine is renowned for its celebrity pregnancy and baby photo shoots and in depth interviews.

"Over our 20 year history we’ve photographed some of the world’s biggest stars with their newborn babies including Jennifer Lopez, the late Michael Jackson, Jerry Hall, Pamela Anderson, Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas and Mel B.

"We continue to bring our readers pregnancy and baby exclusives with many more planned for 2015.

"The magazine is a go-to destination for all the latest celebrity pregnancy and baby news and that’s why OK! Mum and Baby is such a perfect extension of the OK! brand.”

Rob Hunt, head of Northern and Shell Creative Solutions, said: “Our readers love celebrity babies and celebrity baby news so this new venture is absolutely right for them.”

Weekly title OK! recorded an average circulation of 276,169 in the first half of 2014, according to ABC.

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The BBC World Service has launched a "lifeline" Ebola service on Whatsapp for the people of West Africa.

Providing public health information on the disease using audio, text message and images, the new service is available in English and French.

The service is available on +44 7702 348651.

An X Factor finalist reportedly lost out on a £30,000 deal with OK magazine to cover his wedding after demanding ten times the amount.

Rylan Clark, 25, who came fifth in the show in 2012, is due to marry his partner Dan Neal next year.

A source told The Sun: “That’s the kind of money an A-lister like Madonna would command not a former X Factor contestant.

"Unsurprisingly his demand wasn’t snapped up.”

Free Trinity Mirror weekly Glasgow Now is set to publish its final print edition this week and go digital only.

According to Holdthefrontpage, Trinity Mirror said the title – formerly known as The Glaswegian – will now be able to "focus on breaking news, politics and social issues".

Along with Edinburgh Now and Aberdeen Now – which went digital only in April – it was previously available as a free Daily Record supplement or as a stand-alone publication.

Seven writers from former Local World magazine Venue have reportedly teamed up with independent website Bristol 24/7 for a new print and online venture.

Launched in 1982, Venue went online-only in 2011 and then was axed by Local World last November, according to Holdthefrontpage.

The website reports that a 112-page free monthly magazine with a print run of 20,000 is to be launched by Bristol 24/7 along with a revamped website.

Stoke Sentinel deputy editor Martin Tideswell has been promoted to editor-in-chief of the Local World title, replacing Richard Bowyer – who stood down last week after 15 months in the job, and eight years at the title.

Tideswell, who joined the Sentinel in 1998, also has responsibility for the Leek Post and Times and the Staffordshire Newsletter titles.

He said: “Having read The Sentinel as a child and then delivered it as a teenager, I have always felt privileged to work for my home city newspaper. I am, as our slogan says, ‘Local and Proud’. Having been brought up in the Potteries, I know the patch very well and, having been with The Sentinel for 16 years, I know the strengths of the terrific, dedicated team of journalists we have here. I am proud to lead them.”

Future has announced that T3 magazine editor is to become editor of Gizmodo UK. He will be replaced at T3 by Tom Dennis, who has worked across Future' digital brands, including Photography Week.

Gizmodo UK launched in September 2011. According to Future, it averages more than 1.6m monthly unique users globally.

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