An email sent out to all employees following the meeting stated that the company believed it was important to talk directly to local teams about the proposal and that these discussions were happening over this week and the next.
RNZ earlier reported that the Manawatū Standard, Nelson Mail, and Timaru Herald would see their newsroom staff numbers cut from seven reporters to three under the proposal. Taranaki Daily News and the Southland Times would keep four reporters each.
All existing "news director" roles would be disestablished. One editor would remain at each publication, but the people filling those roles would be expected to write news.
In today's email, Stuff management said they were proposing to retain local teams in all their regional newsrooms but would also be establishing a new regional team consisting of a regional group editor, news directors and breaking news reporters.
"Under the proposal, the local teams will work Mon- Fri, office hours with a focus on getting out and meeting people and producing exclusive local journalism aimed at local people. All members of the local team would produce local content including the editor.
"The group regional team would oversee and produce regional breaking news and key information coverage i.e traffic, weather and emergency services updates. They would be rostered across seven days."
Stuff wrote to employees that it was "committed" to using existing vacancies to minimise any job losses but did not specify how many journalists could potentially be lost.
It said some impacted staff may move to new regional news desks, some may stay at their local newsrooms while some may take up other vacancies in editorial elsewhere, if the proposal goes ahead following consideration of feedback.
Employees have been told they will be kept updated over the next two weeks.
Stuff's chief content officer Joanna Norris told the Herald in an earlier statement that the changes "are a proactive step to strengthen our local reporting... and our local and regional news operations".
"This will allow our journalists with boots on the ground in our regional newsrooms to produce unique, enterprise journalism relevant to their readers and to engage regularly with our subscribers and future audiences," she said.
That echoes language from the company's proposal, which said it "would seek to retain our journalists with experience and deep connections to local people, issues and communities".
One Stuff journalist who did not want to be named told RNZ's Mediawatch the restructuring plan had come as a blow for local reporters already struggling with their workload.
He did not believe a new regional team with a focus on quick turnaround breaking news would ease that burden.
"The pressure isn't in breaking news. The pressure is in going out and doing local stories. That's the pressure, and that's where the cuts are being made."
Staff were crying in the office when they received the outline today, he said.
"People are stressed, obviously. It's been a weird few years, but we got through it because the rhetoric has been that it's going to be so positive on the other side. Then you come along and say 'sorry but we're gutting your newsroom, but by the way we still want all this lovely regional journalism'," he said.
"You can't have it both ways. You can't say I'm going to get really fit and then spend all my time on the couch eating fried chicken and drinking beer. It's the whole 'actions speak louder the words' thing."
Stuff's stable includes the five regional papers affected by the proposal along with its titular website, The Sunday Star-Times and the Waikato Times.
The Marlborough Express is not affected by the proposal. Its newsroom is currently funded through the Public Interest Journalism Fund.
A Q&A section attached to its proposal says Stuff has no plans to cut back the frequency, circulation or distribution of its regional papers, and that they will retain the same amount of content.
