UP to 30 jobs are to go at the Trinity Mirror newsgroup which has operations on Tyneside and Teesside.

Five offices are to shut as the company attempts to come to terms with "challenging" trading conditions.

The company publishes The Journal, Evening Chronicle, Sunday Sun and Middlesbrough Evening Gazette.

Offices in Stockton, Redcar, Guisborough, North Shields and Durham are set to close.

Steve Brown, the company's regional managing director, said: "Today we announce a series of proposed measures to ensure that our companies in the North East ride out this economic downturn and best position ourselves for when conditions improve.

"These proposals reflect the senior management team's determination to do the best thing for the business overall and to respond pragmatically to the exceptional economic circumstances that we are now facing."

The National Union of Journalists have said that industrial action is a possibility.