STRIKES SUSPEND MAGS
More than 1,200 journalists and clerical staff at IPC, Reed, BPI, Hamlyn and Butterworths were involved in a pay dispute.
They were staging two-day-a-week strikes in support of a 12.5 per cent pay claim. The action had led to the suspension of a
number of magazines, including the New Musical Express, Oh Boy!, Shoot!, Titbits, Autocar and Ideal Home.
CRICK EXAMINES MILITANT TENDENCY
A boyish Michael Crick, then a Channel 4 journalist, was pictured in Press Gazette after publishing his first book. It was Militant, which looked at the bid by the Militant tendency to take over Labour Party branches and trade unions. Crick, then aged 26, was covering the miners’ strike for Channel 4.
SEXIST ARTICLE
The NUJ had found Sun journalist Terry Lovell guilty of sexism for writing an article which, the union claimed, encouraged discrimination against women. Lovell was accused of breaching the union’s code of conduct for writing an article headlined: “What’s the sexiest bit of a woman?”.
STAR CLASHES WITH TENNIS “SUPERBRAT”
Former Wimbledon champ John McEnroe is now a favourite with the British public and a popular tennis pundit. But 20 years ago his bad-boy behaviour was front page news. Dubbed “superbrat” by Fleet Street, he had clashed with the Daily Star’s Alasdair Buchanan.
At a press conference McEnroe made it clear he thought the British press was the pits. “You blame me for corrupting children but the press should look in the mirror,” he moaned. “All it does is dwell on the bad things and if something good happens it is so screwed up it doesn’t know how to handle it.” Alan Hamilton, in the The Times, volleyed back.
He described the tennis star’s performance at the press conference as relying on “sulky sarcasm, never allowing his eyes to rise above the level of his socks”.
SCARGILL REPORTS ON MINERS’ STRIKE
Miners leader Arthur Scargill was pictured on the front of Press Gazette preparing a report on the miners’ strike for Channel 4. Scargill’s on-camera reporting was said to be a first-take job every time. Scargill and Coal Board boss Ian MacGregor had both been given the chance to present their views on the strike by Channel 4
News editor, Stewart Purvis.
FREE GROUP MAKES HISTORY
The Enfield Independent Group made history by becoming the first free newspaper company to be admitted to membership of the Newspaper Society. Previously the NS had turned down applications from free newspaper groups, seeing them as a
threat to traditional paid-for papers.
A REALLY WIDE CIRCULATION
The Western Daily Press had made it to the North Pole courtesy of explorer David Hempleman Adams, a native of Bristol. The picture of him reading his local paper was taken by a BBC cameraman covering the expedition.
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