Journalists serving Lancashire downed pen and paper to join picket lines yesterday against plans to move their jobs hundreds of miles away to south Wales.

Members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) staged a 24-hour walkout over plans at the Newsquest subsidiary of multinational Gannett to transfer editing and page design jobs to Newport.

The move is part of the company’s onslaught on community newspapers that also sparked a strike yesterday in south London where offices have already been shut. 

Tweeting from the picket line outside his office, Lancashire Telegraph reporter Dan Clough told bosses his local paper “should not be made in Wales.”

Local Labour MPs Jack Straw and Lindsay Hoyle united with Tory Nigel Evans in Parliament to back the workers’ bid to save local news. 

“Lancashire papers need to be produced in Lancashire,” said deputy speaker and Chorley MP Mr Hoyle.

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet led the well-supported strike at Sutton in south London, where Newsquest had axed one paper completely and moved another out of the area. 

Local NUJ leader Mike Murphy-Pyle said the company’s “ongoing policy of managed decline has led to a situation where it is affecting communities.”

Croydon Guardian news editor Robert Fisk said massive staffing cuts pushed his colleagues into action yesterday.

“Getting out to cover stories is a rarity,” he explained.

“This makes it difficult to deliver a high-quality news product to the thousands of people across Croydon who deserve nothing less than this.”