Strike ballot bid over paper jobs

Under the plans the Saturday edition of the Birmingham Post would be dropped

Journalists have called for a strike ballot over plans to cut 65 jobs at a Midlands newspaper group.

Trinity Mirror, publishers of the Birmingham Post and Mail, the Sunday Mercury and Coventry Telegraph, announced the cuts last week.

The National Union of Journalists has condemned the decision, which could also lead to Saturday's Birmingham Post being axed.

The firm said it hoped staff would consider voluntary redundancy.

The moves would also see the staff on the Birmingham papers moving from their current city centre headquarters to a multimedia newsroom at Fort Dunlop.

There will be a similar newsroom set up in Coventry.

As part of the changes, it also plans to sell its newspapers in Northampton and Long Eaton, in Derbyshire.

Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves said last week that the new format would give the paper the "opportunity for the print version of the Post to follow the website in attracting a new generation of younger - but no less serious - business readers".