'Misleading evidence'

The UK’s Competition Commission was investigating allegations made by SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire Pete Wishart that Newsquest had given it misleading evidence while it was considering whether company should be permitted to take over titles from SMG, the UK’s National Union of Journalists reported on 10 July 2007.[10] Wishart had written to the commission in June 2007 to express his concern about standards and job losses at the newspapers. Union members were holding a ballot over whether they should strike over five redundancies on the Glasgow Evening News, one of the papers bought from SMG.

On 25 July 2007, journalists at Newsquest’s former-SMG titles – Glasgow Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times – held a 24-hour strike to protest against compulsory redundancies and cuts of up to £3 million.

Newsquest’s Glasgow NUJ members went on strike again on 3 and 4 August 2007 hampering the Sunday Herald’s planned re-launch. Successful union action had already led to the reinstatement of the deputy Father (leader) of the Evening Times Chapel (office branch) Gordon Thomson on 31 July, while a work-to-rule had caused the cancellation of digital training planned for the following week.

“Newsquest’s purchase of the Herald group was backed by assurances that they would maintain standards and not cut editorial budgets,” the NUJ quoted Cathy Peattie Scottish Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament for Falkirk East as saying. “The Competition Commission may have decided that too much time has passed for it to be able to do anything, but that doesn’t change the fact that Newsquest gave assurances via the commission to the people of Scotland, and those assurances now look worthless,” she added. She was not surprised staff had walked out.

“They have a long list of causes for dissatisfaction - redundancies, staffing shortages, poor working conditions and high stress levels. This is damaging the health of the workers and the health of the paper. Rather than discuss the problems, Newsquest has derecognised the NUJ,” Peattie continued.

Peattie had tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament expressing concerns about the Herald newspapers. It said Newsquest’s programme of job cuts would harm the papers' content and put their staffs at risk and added: ‘The Parliament notes that these developments are taking place despite increased profits and assurances given by Newsquest to the Competition Commission, and believes that this is to the detriment of the long term future of the titles and the Scottish newspaper industry.’

Newsquest on 8 August 2007 started offering users of its Greater London titles' websites downloadable supermarket coupons, which could be redeemed against at supermarkets including Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons for money off a range of goods from cranberry products to canned pet food. Newsquest’s regional digital and display manager Eddie Embleton was "very excited by the prospects that this new initiative presents...An online and offline campaign has been prepared to drive our readers and users directly to the appropriate coupon galleries, with the print element specifically aimed at driving traffic to our website and turning our readers into users’. The company hoped to ‘launch the gallery across the whole of the Newsquest network", the press release added.