Will Gutenburg be turning in his grave?

Paid Content have done an excellent analysis of the number of the number of printing presses that have closed in the UK.

It says that

At least 14 major print plants have closed and 1,496 jobs lost since 2005,but adds

That doesn’t tell the full story: many publishers have actually been steadily investing in reorganising and upgrading the presses, despite rising print costs.

Rupert Murdoch amongst them at automated plants in Broxbourne, Knowsley and Glasgow.

As they point out

for the regional titles, it’s the end of a publishing era. Big papers have traditionally been printed on their own presses in rooms near to their editorial creators, but publishers are now admitting this model is uneconomic and many papers are moving printing to rivals’ presses or to their own larger, but centralised presses many miles away. That means cuts to daily editions; evening editions turned in to morning papers to fit the new economy.

Given that we have just finished a couple of sessions on the art of sub editing,

I was surprised to read the remarks of former Mirror supremo David Montgomerie

Chief executive of European newspaper giant Mecom David Montgomery has said that he sees far less need for the “twilight world” of sub-editing in today’s newspapers.
Speaking at the German embassy last night, the former Mirror Group chief executive spoke of the exciting long-term future print journalists can look forward to.
He said: “Never before has a journalist been able to reach out to their audience without intervention.
“Reporters out in the field can call up a page on their laptop and put copy straight onto the page without intervention.”
He added: “It means journalists can be freed from humdrum roles and the sub-editing culture can break down.”

(via Press Gazette)

Maybe I should just rip up by notes now