The Sunday Express editor, David Wooding, has become the latest top editorial executive to depart Reach, as the national and regional newspaper publisher embarks on further job cuts despite a promise its rounds of redundancies were finished.
Wooding, who left his role as assistant editor at the Sun to take up the role in August 2022, has left as part of a move to dismantle the remaining dedicated Sunday Express editorial team to create a seven-day operation.
Tom Hunt, who was promoted to editor-in-chief of the Express as part of a restructuring in which the title’s editor, Gary Jones, was ousted, told staff on Friday that redundancies were being made “as we progress toward the strategy of a single-team approach”.
“I’ve previously shared with you that my vision for the Express is that every reporter and editor is able to upload content to the website, and there’s no segregation between ‘print’ and ‘digital’,” he said in an email to staff. “As part of this, we will be moving to working across seven days and so there will no longer be a dedicated team for the Sunday Express.”
Hunt said that he would announce his “leadership team” in the next few weeks.
Two sources said that the restructuring included the departure of Wooding, a former political editor at the Sun on Sunday and Whitehall editor at the Sun, who had previously worked at the Reach-owned Sunday People as news editor.
The departure of Wooding follows that of senior editorial executives including Jones, the Daily Mirror editor, Alison Phillips, and the group editor-in-chief, Lloyd Embley.
In January, Jim Mullen, the chief executive of Reach, which owns national papers including the Mirror and scores of regional titles including the Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo, said there would be no more redundancies this year.
Mullen, who slashed almost 800 roles in the biggest annual cull of jobs in the newspaper industry in decades, said the move meant this year would be redundancy-free unless an unexpected market shock caused a faster-than-planned commercial deterioration.
Mullen told staff at a town hall meeting earlier this year that they had to face the “inconvenient truth” that Reach’s print titles would become loss-making in as little as five years.
However, he said the cost-cutting drive to move to a digital-first approach to increase online revenues would stabilise the profitability of the titles.
“Journalism is at the heart of what we do and it’s essential that we have the right teams and skills to serve our audiences and reach new ones,” said a spokesperson for Reach.
“Any changes are all about ensuring we are fit for this purpose as we adjust some areas while investing in others. We believe the overall size of our editorial team is appropriate and while some teams have changed this year as we develop new roles and capabilities, our size has remained fairly constant.”
Last month, Reach announced 60 new editorial hires.
