Staff at Berliner Zeitung have held several emergency meetings to discuss both the newspaper's future and the 20 percent cuts media group Mecom Group Plc, which owns the paper, is rumoured to be considering.

The staff also wrote a personal letter to David Montgomery, Mecom's executive chairman, stating that he must “rethink his current business policy,” and that “if Mecom is unable to come up with such a strategy, in the interests of the paper and its readers a new, appropriate proprietor should be sought,” the Guardian reported Wednesday.

The staff also wrote a personal letter to Josef Depenbrock, the paper's editor-in-chief who was appointed to the position by Montgomery, who also gave him an extra job title of managing editor.

The letter calling on Depenbrock to quit his position, as staff members claim holding both roles is a conflict of interest, because editorial code demands editorial and commercial departments be completely separated.

“After almost two years of your administration, all of our fears have been realised,” the letter stated, according to the Guardian. “You are either unwilling, or unable, to adequately control the editorial department ... Mr. Depenbrock, we have lost faith in you. Stand down.”

Mecom bought the Berlin-based newspaper in 2005. Since then, about 16 top journalists have left the newspaper, a Berliner Zeitung staffer told the Guardian.

Mecom currently owns more than 300 titles in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Ukraine, and employs more than 11,000 people.