Following on from the announcement that 80 subeditors across the Daily Express and Sunday Express are being made redundant, details have emerged of a proposal for reporters to input stories directly into page templates.

Under the proposed system, reporters would fit stories into an editorial template containing the necessary styles. Rewriters and lawyers would then check the pages.

A leaked memo entitled, "Changing Ways of Working", outlined the proposed changes to workflow at the newspapers. The newspaper group has recently introduced the Woodwing editorial system.

Express Newspapers group managing editor, Ian Parrott, said in the memo, "We are therefore proposing to introduce the direct input of copy by reporters and writers into the system. Pages would be envisaged by the backbench and drawn by the designers as now. The reporters would be sent a shape for the stories, containing all the necessary type and styles and they would fit their copy to that shape.

"Once finished, the reporters/writers would check in their story shape and the words would be edited by the newsdesk and a team of rewriters/editors who would also write the headlines and make any necessary changes. Our night lawyers would check the stories as they do at present."

There has been no formal conformation from Express Newspapers that the memo is genuine or that the plans will be implemented.

Source: MediaGuardian.co.uk