The Isle of Thanet Gazette is one of three titles facing closure as a merger is planned between three of Northcliffe's Kent newspapers
More newspaper closures are expected at Northcliffe Media titles in Kent in the wake of the company's failed deal with Kent Messenger Group (KM Group).
The company announced earlier this week that it was to close the Medway News and East Kent Gazette with the loss of 38 jobs, and has now confirmed that it is considering merging three weeklies in the region: the Isle of Thanet Gazette, Isle of Thanet Times, and Canterbury Times.
The proposed deal between Northcliffe and the KM Group – which would have seen the seven titles published by Northcliffe subsidiary Kent Regional News & Media sold to the KM Group – was effectively blocked by the Office of Fair Trading, which decided to refer the deal to the Competition Commission.
The KM Group withdrew from the plans following the referral, citing the potential cost of a competition investigation.
Barry Fitzpatrick, head of publishing at the National Union of Journalists, said today that the move to merge the Thanet and Canterbury titles threatened to "severely handicap the diversity of the press in the region".
"It's clear that this comes in a long line of cuts and it's becoming apparent that Northcliffe no longer has any commitment to the regional press, and that obviously worries us a great deal.
"This will severely handicap diversity of the press in the region. They tried to sell of the Kent titles, but they weren't even willing to subject that to any referral. Now they are just cutting and running.
"The planned merger of these three titles is very worrying, it looks like another staging post before they exit completely.
"I don't want to dishearten the people left there, but this is evidence that Northcliffe has no plan for the future."
The possible merger in Kent follows news on Wednesday that Northcliffe is to close the offices of the Croydon advertiser and relocate 12 staff to the offices of the Sunday Mirror in nearby Redhill.
A Northcliffe spokesperson said that the Croydon move will involve no redundancies, and today denied rumours that there are job losses planned at its centralised sub-editing hub in Chelmsford, which was confirmed by staff in the region.
Despite creating a number of centralised sub-editing hubs around the country over the past few years, the company announced on Tuesday that it was to scrap its hub in the North East and return sub-editing and production operations to three of the five titles it covers: the Hull Daily Mail, Grimsby Telegraph, and Lincolnshire Echo.
The North East hub was created two years ago with the loss of jobs in the region, and a further four full-time jobs are likely to be cut when it is disbanded.
A spokesperson for Northcliffe called the move "a positive step in its wish to give ownership and control of its print products back to local teams".
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