Mirror publisher cuts 220 editorial jobs. Traffic from Google Discover fell 46 percent in the second half of 2025

British publisher Reach, which owns the newspapers Mirror, Express and Daily Star as well as dozens of regional titles, will cut another 220 editorial jobs. At the same time it will create around 60 new positions focused on subscriptions and longer-form video, and will close three websites: KentLive, AberdeenLive and the Irish site GalwayBeo. "We are in the middle of a mammoth shift in how audiences want content and journalism," the company's chief content officer David Higgerson wrote to staff on Wednesday. The Guardian ↗ RTÉ ↗

Traffic from Google Discover, a service that offers mobile users articles without searching, fell 46 percent year-on-year for Reach in the second half of 2025, according to its March results. Traffic from Google search itself was, according to chief executive Piers North, "relatively stable" at the time, although "still a little bit under pressure". In the first half of 2026 the decline deepened: according to its half-year report, referrals from Google fell 55 percent year-on-year, page views fell 40 percent, and revenue fell 9 percent. Speaking about the report, North said the company wants to achieve "greater independence from referral traffic" through subscriptions and video. Press Gazette links today's editorial cuts to changes in the Discover algorithm as well as the rise of AI Overviews, which answer readers directly within the search engine. Press Gazette ↗ Press Gazette ↗ Reach ↗

Fewer articles, more time with readers

"To ensure a sustainable future for our journalism, we must focus our investment in the areas where our audiences spend the most time and where our revenue reflects the value of our work," Higgerson wrote. "In our newsrooms, that means less emphasis on story volume and more on original journalism and distinctive brands." By the end of the year, the main measure of success — superseding page views — will become so-called "active engaged time", meaning how long readers actually spend engaging with the content. The Guardian ↗ Press Gazette ↗

According to Higgerson, the company is not closing the three websites because of the work of their journalists, but because of their weak market position in their regions. He says the company continues to be affected by declining traffic from Google search and by competition from an "expansionist BBC", which in the regions mirrors what commercial publishers publish in as many as 70 percent of cases. According to RTÉ, the cuts will also affect commercial departments, where around 65 of roughly 500 jobs will be eliminated. A consultation period of at least 45 days has begun with the affected employees. The Guardian ↗ RTÉ ↗

Second major round in a year

Last September, Reach announced a reorganization that it called its largest ever. At the time it put 600 jobs at risk and ultimately cut more than 300 editorial positions. In February this year it announced the closure of two of its three printing plants, affecting nearly 240 people. The Guardian ↗ RTÉ ↗

Reach's shares have lost 90 percent of their value over the past five years. According to results for last year, published in March, the company's digital revenue fell by almost one percent to £128.9 million. The company has 50,000 paid digital subscribers and wants to reach 75,000 by the end of the current financial year. According to its annual report, it employed an average of 3,423 people, of whom 2,494 worked in editorial and production. The Guardian ↗

Clicks decline, regulators step in

How much less people click when a search engine shows them an AI summary was already measured in 2025 by the American research organization Pew Research Center, using web-browsing data from 900 adults. When people were shown an AI summary in March 2025, they clicked on one of the search results in 8 percent of visits, compared with 15 percent without a summary. They clicked on a link directly within the summary in just 1 percent of visits. Pew Research Center ↗

Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ordered Google on June 3 to let publishers prevent the use of their content in AI search features, including AI Overviews, as well as in the fine-tuning of AI models. Google must also properly attribute publishers' content in AI answers with clear links. The authority described it as the first measure of its kind in the world and gave Google nine months to implement all the changes. CMA ↗

On December 9, 2025, the European Commission opened a formal investigation into whether Google is breaching competition rules. It is examining the extent to which AI Overviews and AI Mode rely on publishers' content without fair compensation and without allowing publishers to opt out of such use without losing access to Google Search. According to the Commission, opening the investigation does not prejudge its outcome. European Commission ↗

*Photo: the One Canada Square skyscraper in London's Canary Wharf, home to Reach's headquarters, January 2013. Author: Mark Gilbert / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.*