British media group Reach, owner of the Daily Express and Daily Mirror tabloids as well as numerous local newspapers, informed employees Wednesday that it will cut 220 journalist positions. Chief Content Officer David Higgerson informed told staff the group finds itself in “a mammoth shift in how audiences want content and journalism”, according to an internal note seen by AFP. At the same time, the group plans to create 60 editorial posts to boost digital revenue growth, including longer-format videos. Higgerson said future newsrooms will need to pay less attention to story length and focus more on original journalism. “It also means that ‘active engaged time’ will become our north star metric, over and above page views, by the end of the year,” he added. British media reported another 65 jobs are to be cut in the group’s commercial services. Reach has reported a drop in traffic to its site from search engines such as Google, which earlier this year introduced AI overviews of content that media organizations fear will decrease the likelihood that readers will click through to read the original article. The lower traffic resulted in an 8.1 per cent drop in revenues during the first quarter, Reach said in May. According to its latest annual report, Reach employs more than 3,100 people across more than 120 publications, including many local journals such as the Manchester Evening News and the Liverpool Echo. The group cut journalist positions by 186 in 2025 and has offered voluntary departure packages this year.
