Trinity Mirror reports that it is forming two integrated multimedia newsrooms in Birmingham and Coventry that will make use of a new digital content management system, offering editorial content for five of its titles as well as page production for 30 weekly publications.

The changes that Trinity Mirror is making to its Midlands publishing division may reflect the turmoil that surrounds regional and local newspapers, as they undergo economic decline and cut editorial positions.

The Guardian's Roy Greenslade points out that regional and local papers must shift from print to screen in such a way so as to preserve their audience while making use of the underlying principle of local papers.

"In using the new form of transmitting news they must not lose sight of the basics, the local news and pictures that have traditionally sold local papers," Greenslade says.

While regional papers may be in a trickier economic position than local ones, things may be different if they found "an editorial formula in recent years that can engage with increasingly diverse populations over large areas", according to Greenslade.

The Birmingham Post's diminished circulation of nearly 12,500 per day may be a result of the combination of the paper's switch from broadsheet to tabloid, the discontinuation of Saturday publishing and the shift of attention toward business-oriented content.

The Post's evening counterpart, the Birmingham Mail, has a circulation of 67,000, although the figure decreases 5% each year. The sales figures are 59,000 for the Sunday Mercury, 46,933 for the Coventry Telegraph and 121,000 for the Coventry Times.

The 65 job cuts that are to take place are most likely to be in production, which Greenslade thinks refers to subeditors.

Source: The Guardian

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