According to a source from Singapore Press Holdings, more staff will be informed of their termination as the retrenchment exercise is carried out for the second day on Friday, Oct. 13, 2017.
The Straits Times only reported that 130 staff who will be retrenched, representing 3 percent of manpower at SPH.
No details of retrenchment in each department was given in the report.
But the source from SPH has provided a partial breakdown.
Breakdown of retrenched staff
The most updated figures suggest staff cuts at ST newsroom are the most severe, with up to 40 employees affected — probably because they have the biggest headcount out of all newsrooms.
Here are the latest retrenchment numbers:
• Straits Times: 40
→ includes seven from Life!
→ five sub-editors
→ four at news desk
• Business Times: 17
Resentment and confusion
According to the source, the most baffling move was the retrenchment of a few young reporters.
The source said the cost of keeping these young reporters is “very, very low” and the cut was perceived to be arbitrary.
The source also said direct supervisors of the reporters “had absolutely no say” in deciding if the juniors should be kept. And they only found out who on their staff and how many got axed at 9am on Thursday, when the retrenchment exercise began in earnest.
The collective view is that the new SPH chief executive, Ng Yat Chung, is a big fan of cost-cutting, which will not be good news for the newsroom staff.
Consolidation of resources
The source also said there is a consolidation of resources in the various newsrooms to streamline manpower.
The New Paper sports desk will move to ST in November, and ST money desk will move to BT.
Mothership.sg understands that Warren Fernandez, editor-in-chief of SPH’s English/ Malay/ Tamil Media Group is going to hold another meeting on Friday at 5pm just for ST.
Photographer who covered townhall event laid off
Another SPH source said one photographer who took photos of the company-wide townhall meeting on Thursday morning was retrenched after he filed his work.
However, the source also said the silver lining is that job offers have started to come in for some of those affected.
There is also a sense of relief for those who did not get cut, but there is no assurance they won’t be next down the road in a few years’ time.
https://mothership.sg/2017/10/sph-source...rried-out/
1) I think it will be a loss to SPH media if it retrenches its young staff. As previously mentioned by another VB, content is produced by humans. And if the news/opinion pieces written by the older staff are not bringing in more "eyeballs," SPH media will have greater difficulty in generating content that can connect with its readers, thereby impacting its circulation or page views. If it wanted to attract more readers, it would have hired more and better writers/reporters to provide more diverse/varied stories.
2) If direct supervisors “had absolutely no say” in the fate of their subordinates, it implies that the list was made by someone high up. Probably someone who chose to keep the people they think will best support the paper's national agenda. If so, then we can expect more of the same in terms of the content produced by SPH media. Which means more of the same in terms of financial results.
3) A lot of these retrenched writers/reporters/journalists, young and old, will be very upset. Especially if journalism is their passion, and they studied at institutions such as Columbia University. Some of these people who wish to continue to write stories will eventually start their own online blogs -- like mothership -- and become another of SPH media's competitor. I foresee more high-quality news blogs such as mothership and bertha henson. If SPH media does not provide what the market wants, then there will be new entrants who does so.