Financial Express to close Bombay desk

The Financial Express has decided to close its news desk operations in Bombay.

Soon, the Financial Express news desk will be centralised in New Delhi. This follows the trend of newspapers centralising production operations to save costs.

The news desk employees at Financial Express in Bombay have been given the option to either shift to the bureau, or move to the New Delhi desk. To move to reporting, however, desk staffers will have to clear a test, say informed sources.

The trend of newspapers centralising operations is not new. Indian Express had closed most of its desk, including the Bombay desk last year. The desk operations were shifted to New Delhi. The Hindustan Times too centralised its business news desk in Delhi, which prompted many desk staffers to look for alternate options.

DNA, which recently launched a Bangalore edition, has been an exception. Most of the Bangalore edition pages are made in Bangalore itself. This is in stark contrast to the general industry practice where papers tend to cut costs and centralise operations with a single desk.

Other steps which Indian newspapers are contemplating, or have already implemented, to deal with the economic slowdown include reducing office car drops, asking employees to print on both sides of paper in the office, cutting down on canteen services and items on the menu, reducing number of pages and cutting down on supplements. Most newspapers are much thinner today compared to same time last year.

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