Moneyweb reports that Media24 has announced it will retain all 66 journalists from the four print newspapers earmarked for closure. They will be incorporated into its Netwerk24, News24, and Daily Sun websites.
Media24 also announced that its Afrikaans daily newspaper, Beeld, was no longer for sale. “Although we anticipate that the PDF versions of Beeld and Volksblad will no longer be available, the teams are working on plans to provide a digital presence for these historical and beloved brands on Netwerk24,” the company explained in a press release. Media24 defined a journalist as “any editorial member who works with pure journalistic content – whether they create it (in words or with photos or multimedia), or process and package it”. This means other retrenchments could still go ahead, as the original estimate before the latest announcement was that up to 400 jobs could be at stake. In the latest statement, Ishmet Davidson, CEO of Media24, said: “From the outset, Media24 undertook to keep job losses – particularly of our journalists – to a minimum, and this is an important breakthrough in our consultations with staff around the proposed closures of the print editions of Beeld, City Press, Daily Sun, and Rapport.” Media24 is in the process of selling its media logistics business On the Dot, along with its community newspaper portfolio, to Novus Holdings. The transaction still needs to be approved by competition authorities, which the company expects to be granted by October. However, the process may be delayed as Caxton and Capital Newspapers, which have already made a competing offer for the assets, have announced their intention to oppose the transaction. No restructuring or title closures will apparently commence prior to Competition Commission approval of the proposed sale of On the Dot. Capital Newspapers MD Riquadeu Jacobs commented that the latest announcement by Media24 illustrated the point that the closure of the newspapers was ill-conceived from the start.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Jeremy Maggs at Moneyweb
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