Rui Moreira warns that JN is ‘the last bastion of freedom of information’ in Porto

The mayor of Porto warned this Thursday that the Jornal de Notícias (JN) is “the last bastion of freedom of information” in the region and said that media funding “needs to be reviewed.”

Speaking to reporters, Rui Moreira, who welcomed about 50 JN workers who demonstrated this afternoon in front of Porto City Hall, where the Council of Ministers was meeting, said he was still surprised by the announcement of layoffs on that daily.

A group of around 50 JN workers demonstrated this afternoon against the announcement of the layoffs of 40 of the newspaper’s 90 workers, with JN owner Global Media Group (GMG) saying it intends to terminate contracts “as a matter of urgency” involving 200 employees of various bodies of the group.

“JN is the last great newspaper in Porto, a newspaper is not just something on paper that we buy, it is freedom of study, information, we cannot forget that at the beginning of the centuries there were three newspapers in Porto, there was the Comércio do Porto, Primeiro de Janeiro and JN,” emphasized Rui Moreira.

According to the mayor, “JN is the last bastion of freedom of information in Porto, it is the last newspaper that sees the world and the country from Porto and does so with complete freedom.”

Rui Moreira stated that what is happening to JN is worth reflecting on: “I insisted that media funding be reviewed (…) In a city like Porto (…) the services provided by journalists cannot be quantified. sales, and this is inherent in the very understanding of what journalism is,” he said.

For the mayor, “information is a value, it’s not an intangible value, it’s a tangible value that needs to be protected: “I’m very impressed that we can’t support JN ​​at the moment. I would like to see ways found to help municipalities without being tied to the government procurement network in order to be able to help with this,” he emphasized.

“This is a good time for political forces to define for once what journalism is, which cannot be measured in terms of sales and the ability of newspapers to attract advertising,” said Rui Moreira.

In an internal statement on Wednesday, the group that owns JN said it would negotiate “as a matter of urgency” redundancies with 150 to 200 workers and embark on a restructuring to avoid the group’s “more than foreseeable bankruptcy.”

According to a statement accessed by Lusa, the termination agreements will be negotiated “with the participation of between 150 and 200 workers across the group’s different areas and brands” in order to “avoid collective redundancies.” process” which, according to the Executive Committee, “will be considered as a last resort”.

“Due to the financial constraints caused by the cancellation of the Lusa deal,” the GMG administration also states that “payment of the Christmas subsidy for 2023 can only be made through twelfths added to salaries from January to December next year,” it said.

This statement was issued as JN workers gathered for a “strike picket,” a day of struggle that they completed on Wednesday and this Thursday.

“We don’t take it very positively, we don’t want to say it’s a form of pressure, but a statement like that that comes when we’re making a protest that we think is legitimate and fair, it was very difficult to deal with and it makes people angry.” all people,” Augusto Correia, leader of the Union of Journalists (SJ), told reporters today.