There is no doubt tonight is a painful watch at times as valued colleagues leave our newsroom. The realities of the economics of trying to compete in a landscape dominated by the internet giants and, ironically, the BBC are under the harsh spotlight of the cameras.

All publishers are facing enormous challenges, juggling the continuing demands of print with the insatiable appetite of the digital world. Our revenue and markets are plundered by the online providers of free, unregulated and often misleading and inaccurate content.

And yes the BBC are also a large part of the problem. Funded lavishly by taxpayers, including a whopping £30m for the barely watched new BBC Scotland channel - where there is no measure of success and no audience targets to hit to prove its worth!

Together with Facebook and Google their uncontrolled reach now extends into markets once the preserve of local publishers - costing jobs and closing titles.

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We are not immune and we have been open with staff about the resultant financial pressures. Sadly it is now the norm in the publishing world but as you will see again tonight there is a resilience - a bunker mentality that keeps us going.

Thankfully all of those who have departed in the past 18 months have done so voluntarily. In many cases such as our sports reporter Alison McConnell they have opted to go freelance and had the financial cushion of continuing to write paid columns for us. We retain talent but on a reduced cost base.

As with almost all industries, we need to continually adapt to new technology and new demands. That means taking advantage of process efficiencies and evaluating the importance and priority of resource.

We're fortunate that with fewer photographers available in these constrained times, the modern journalist is now so multiskilled that they can take stills, shoot video and upload to site using only the smartphone in their hand. A lifetime away from the sacred art of developing film or even inserting an HD card. It's this combination of old and new that allows us to evolve and maintain quality, while enriching what we can offer our audience.

As a national newspaper the quality threshold is much higher but that does not stop questions being asked and assessments made. In last week’s show, our brilliant photographer Kirsty was filmed waiting for two hours in the torrential rain with our competitors to capture Prime Minister Theresa May. As an editor that’s a valued picture. As a manager that”s not the most effective use of her time, albeit we didn’t know the PM”s arrival was going to be as delayed.

And that in essence is the choices we now make. There is no right or wrong just a matter of balance and understanding of our markets and reader expectations.

Similarly, the roles and numbers of those involved in the production process have been streamlined as we have taken advantage of technology and put more emphasis on getting it right first time.

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Would I rather have numerous eyes on the same piece of reporting or fewer eyes on that single article and more reporters producing more content?

Reporters can now use technology to write their copy straight onto the electronic page, adding their own headline and providing pictures if required - and filing it to our websites with links to added or associated content. I very much doubt I could have mastered all of that when I set out 35 years ago but for young journalists being truly multi-media is second nature. An iPad is the new comfort blanket for toddlers!

Again, for a national newspaper, there is a higher quality threshold and we still need to ensure all copy is checked at least once for errors and accuracy. The small team work incredibly hard regard casting their eyes over thousands of words every day. Occasionally a typo will slip by and I apologise.

Production roles will naturally be where the focus is to make efficiencies if we can rather than content creators. But again that balance must be struck to ensure our papers look great, our content properly displayed and, of course, copy errors are kept to a minimum.

That makes for difficult conversations and in that respect, we are no different to many other professions. Hopefully, though it will come across clearly that my managers truly care about the people who work for them and show the same empathy, honesty and integrity that is the hallmark of trusted journalism.