Wonders will never cease (Part II).

There will be no Croydon Guardian as we recognise it for at least two weeks

Gavin Barwell, the MP for Croydon Central, has today published a blog post supporting the strikers, as American-based newspaper owners Newsquest seek to impose even more staff cuts to its south London free papers where journalists have endured multiple redundancies over the last decade.

(Meanwhile, not a peep on the matter from the Blairite “Labour” MP for Croydon North…).

It is a demoralising industry trend which has recently also seen the editor of the Redhill-based Sadvertiser opt to leave his job to start working casual shifts at Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper, rather than face further “management restructuring”.

With the Sadvertiser having its sports pages produced from Tunbridge Wells and its news pages subbed and laid out in Essex, all delivered using an ever-smaller reporting staff, the paper is increasingly prone to embarrassing errors and increasingly removed from its Croydon readership.

Over two decades, national and local newspaper managements have failed to address the growth of the internet (Murdoch’s Sun has just announced it is to abandon its experiment with a pay-wall on its website), free news delivery via the BBC, And declining newspaper circulations, while failing to find a  way to pay for proper journalism. Newspaper owners such as Newsquest continue to run at significant profit, as they effectively asset-strip their businesses.

The National Union of Journalists and the staff of the Sutton and Croydon Guardians have today issued the following front page:

• Inside Croydon Events: for dates and links to what’s happening in and around Croydon, updated daily, click here

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• Croydon’s only independent news source, based in the heart of the borough: 729,297 page views in 2014.
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