By Jon Slattery
Newsquest’s PR chief Andrew Diprose, responsible for handling media
enquiries about everything from redundancies to strike ballots, is
himself looking for a new job.
The long-serving journalist leaves the regional newspaper publisher
on 29 July after 14 years with the company, having been made redundant.
His
role, based at Southampton, also included advising management on PR
issues and spearheading the group’s internal communications.
Previously
employed by Southern Newspapers (later renamed Newscom), he was one of
the few survivors at group level when that company was acquired by
Newsquest in June 2000.
Diprose said: “I count myself lucky to have worked with some great people in a job I have always thoroughly enjoyed.
I’m now looking forward to new challenges, wherever they may be.”
Diprose, who is 44, joined Westminster Press in Bedford as an indentured trainee reporter in 1979.
Apart
from the regional press he has worked in independent local radio – at
one stage he was the UK’s youngest head of news of a commercial station.
Diprose
also ran his own news agency in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire – MK
News Agency – which he sold for a five-figure sum in 1991.
During
a four-year spell as business editor of the Daily Echo, Bournemouth, he
made the headlines in Press Gazette in 1994 when his business column
highlighted a 36 per cent pay increase for his then chief executive
James Sexton and quoted unions who described the rise as “obscene”. Six
months later, after what some described as a report verging on suicidal
in career terms, he was offered a management job working for the same
chief executive.
Diprose is expected to seek new opportunities in either journalism or public relations.
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