The editor-in-chief for Johnston Press titles in East Sussex has left the role after a journalism career spanning 42 years.
Having overseen the Herald and Gazette in Eastbourne; the Hastings Observer series in Hastings, Bexhill, Rye and Battle; and the Sussex Express in Lewes, Keith Ridley stood down from the post at the end of January.
Ridley (pictured above, Eastbourne Herald) will continue his involvement with some of the titles as a part-time consultative editor, and hopes to take on other roles to keep him involved in the area.
He said: “My entire working life has been spent at the heart of local communities. It really has been a privilege and particularly so in East Sussex, which has such a fantastic community ethos.”
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Ridley began editing his home-town newspaper, the Daventry Express, at the age of 21.
Since then he has held editorial roles at the Rugby Advertiser and the Portsmouth News before moving to Eastbourne in 2001 to manage T.R. Beckett, a Johnston Press subsidiary company, which produced the Eastbourne Herald and Gazette papers as well as the Hastings, Bexhill and Rye and Battle Observers.
He later became managing director of Johnston’s Central Counties Newspapers, overseeing newspapers and websites across Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, before taking his current role six years ago.
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Johnston Press said there were no plans to replace Ridley at the present.
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