Martin McGinley is to replace the Derry Journal's longstanding editor of 25 years, Pat McArt.
McGinley previously edited the 22,580-circulation weekly Journal's sister paper the Sunday Journal (6,311) while running his own freelance PR company.
A professional Irish folk musician, McGinley used to present his own music programmes on RTE and before that he edited the Donegal Democrat and worked for the BBC in Belfast.
McArt said: "You could say he's had an interesting and varied career — he even owned his own pub. Martin is a superb journalist with a superb track record. While he was editor of the Donegal Democrat group of newspapers, one of the papers won several ABC awards for sales."
Talking of his own experiences at the paper, McArt added: "I came here in the middle of the hunger strikes and Derry was like an open air prison with checkpoints everywhere. In the past 25 years it's changed so much. We had John Hume who was the local MP and won the Nobel Peace Prize, we had Martin McGuinness and serious international figures, so we had big stories and it was very exciting."
Donegal-born McGinley took over from McArt on Monday.
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