Independent expected to announce closure of print editions

Evgeny Lebedev is expected to announce later on Friday that the print editions of the Independent and Independent on Sunday will be closed.

Lebedev is in the final stages of a deal to sell the i, the cut-price national title which has financially supported the Independent since launching in 2010, with the £25m proceeds to be used to focus on building the independent.co.uk website – at the expense of the newspapers.

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Many of the 150 full-time staff on the Indy and i titles are now at risk of losing their jobs.

Despite the revelation on Thursday that Lebedev was looking to abandon the print editions, staff pushed forward with Friday’s edition which splashed with a picture of two black holes and the headline: “The theory of relativity proved.”

Between 20 and 40 members of staff are expected to move to Johnston Press, the owner of the Scotsman which is close to taking over the i. An unknown number will be kept on to work on the expanded digital operation.

It is understood that Steve Auckland, the chief executive of ESI Media, the parent company of Indy and i titles, Indy editor Amol Rajan and Oliver Duff, editor of the i, spent most of Thursday afternoon absent from the company’s office locked in meetings about the decision to close.

Duff used his column in Friday’s i to explaining the merits of the deal to readers – while failing to mention the fate of the Indy print titles.

He said the £25m deal is “a sign of your clout (and appeal) as i readers”.

“[Johnston Press’s] huge admiration for i, for the team and writers who create each daily edition, for i’s readers, and for i’s founding principles, has been obvious throughout talks with them.”

He added that the new owner would continue to support the newspaper’s ethos, the “DNA of the title” – “honest journalism, a progressive view of the world and trying to tell it straight”.