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.