ONE in four journalists at a Scottish newspaper are expected to lose their jobs.
The cuts at The Scotsman will be drawn from feature and business writers, as well as specialist correspondents.
Staff at the Edinburgh-based title were told about the cuts on Wednesday, a day before the paper's owner, National World, announced a 17% year-on-year growth in revenue.
At a union meeting, journalists at the title passed a motion of "anger and dismay" at management.
National Union of Journalists' (NUJ) members are now seeking to meet with The Scotsman's editor, Neil McIntosh, to "explain why such severe cuts were needed only three weeks after he told journalists they had achieved year-on-year growth and congratulated them for their performance, effort and hard work."
The cuts follow two of the paper's three football correspondents being made redundant in January, which came as Newsquest Scotland, based in Glasgow, opened two football-centred outlets covering Hibs and Hearts.
Nick McGowan-Lowe, NUJ national organiser for Scotland, told Press Gazette: “The Scotsman has a long and proud history.
"It now has a much smaller staff, albeit of experienced journalists respected by newsrooms across Scotland, but apparently not by National World’s management in England.
“These proposed cuts, following soon after the axing of two football writers earlier in the year, create more worrying gaps in the coverage.
"It seems National World is making rash, short-term decisions which are destroying any plan of investing in quality, long-form journalism to build up subscriptions.
“National World, under the management of David Montgomery, is a company which cuts staffing to the bone and then wonders why circulation bleeds.”
The NUJ said that the decision had been made by National World executives due to an alleged failure of the title to reach its subscription targets.
According to the company, The Scotsman and several other titles it is grouped with grew subscriptions by 17% so far this year.
The paper has apparently also been making good progress on hitting its page view targets, which according to the union were to double traffic between the start and end of 2024.
National World has been contacted for comment.
