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Journalists for sale on eBay
Make a bid
Jason Deans, broadcasting editor
Friday December 9, 2005
The editorial staff of the Western Daily Press are offering the services of journalists about to be made redundant by owner Northcliffe up for auction on eBay.
Staff are facing the loss of a fifth of their number - around 36 posts - and are offering eBay bidders "one entire multi award winning regional newspaper team".
By 4pm today the online auction had attracted 14 bidders and the price offered for the Western Daily Press journalists had reached £22.
As well as facing redundancies, journalists on the Bristol-based title are also among those facing a change of ownership, with Daily Mail & General Trust putting its Northcliffe regional newspaper subsidiary up for sale last week.
The eBay entry by Western Daily Press staff states: "We are a talented and dedicated staff and wish to continue working together producing great newspapers. The winner of this auction, subject to our terms below, will have won the right to employ every redundant member of staff to produce the newspaper of your choice.
"This could be the start of your media empire. You are bidding for reporters, photographers, sub-editors, feature writers, sports journalists, page designers, news editors, picture editors, graphic artists - all of the highest pedigree."
The eBay auction is offering the services of every Western Daily Press journalist made redundant by Northcliffe over the next two months.
However, the winning bidder "must agree to employ us at the same salary, job title, benefits and working conditions as we enjoy now without requiring us to relocate out of the south west".
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Crazy business... in all seriousness though, I really hope they manage to keep their jobs. My experience, though, has been that Northcliffe are pretty unscrupulous in their dealings with their reporters. They seem to have a terrible reputation in terms of the amount they pay their journalists (ie, around £10,000pa for a rookie, rising to approximately £14,000 at the end of the two-year training period), and this in an industry which is notorious for crappy wages.
It's always been my perception that people assume journalists earn a fortune...