THE MEAN MAN
Dig that quiff, big glasses and sideburns. Ian Mean, now editor of The Citizen, Gloucester, cut a dash as northern news editor of the Daily Mail in Manchester. He had just taken over from Jonathan Holborow who went on to edit the Mail on Sunday .
FALSE RUMOUR WITHDRAWN
Punch magazine apologised to Beaverbrook Newspapers for publishing in its Paul Callan column a “false rumour” that the Daily Express would close by the end of the year and that the Evening Standard could be sold to another publisher. The column was wrong about the Express folding. But the Express titles and the Standard were sold to Trafalgar House three years later.
JAMESON’S FAREWELL TO LENSMEN
Daily Mirror northern editor Derek Jameson was pictured at the leaving do of two of the paper’s best-known photographers, Ernie Chapman and Johnny Robson. The fourth person in the picture was the head of Lancashire CID, Chief Supt Joe Mounsey, who was pinning a police badge on Chapman. Jameson recalled that Chapman had once set up a spoof game of golf with crooner Bing Crosby for a feature, but insisted on winning. He also remembered that Robson had run onto the pitch and held up a Newcastle versus Manchester City soccer game to report the City goalkeeper for swearing at him.
NUJ BL ACKS LIKENESS OF SUSPECTS
An NUJ dispute led to identi-kit pictures of a man and woman, wanted in connection with the Guildford bombing, being blacked at the Surrey Daily Advertiser. The paper appeared with blank spaces where the illustrations should have been. The pictures were blacked because they had not been drawn by an artist who was a member of the union.
NO UNION EXEMPTIONS FOR EDITORS
A massive row was breaking out after the NUJ had decided to end its traditional policy of exempting editors from industrial action and making them subject to union discipline. A delegation of 21 editors – including David Astor of The Observer , Alastair Hetherington of The Guardian and Denis Hamilton, of Times Newspapers – had called on Employment Secretary Michael Foot urging him to defuse what they saw as the threat of editors being subject to a union closed shop. They argued that no editor should be forced to join a union or placed under pressure to accept union instructions. Foot, an NUJ member and former editor of the Evening Standard, told them their fears were “misplaced”.
EDITOR LOSES APPEAL
Ian A. Nimmo, editor of the Evening Gazette, Middlesbrough, had lost an appeal against a £50 fine imposed by the NUJ after he worked during an official strike.
FAMOUS RUGBY TACKLE
This famous picture of a streaker being tackled at Twickenham and having his modesty protected by a police helmet was a winner for Ian Bradshaw of the Sunday Mirror in the 1974 British Press Picture Awards.
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