WOMEN HIT BACK AT HITCHEN
Women journalists at Express Newspapers saw red over comments by Daily Star editor Brian Hitchen in Options magazine. Hitchen had said: “Having more women reporters is not a good thing. They should stick to fashion and women’s magazines. I’m probably old fashioned, but there are some things a woman shouldn’t see. I don’t like hard women and you certainly get hard in this job.” Retaliation was swift. The women journalists printed up a T-shirt with Hitchen’s head on wrestler Big Daddy’s giant body – and then added his quote: “There are some things a woman shouldn’t see.”
LBC STAYS ON AIR DESPITE RECEIVERSHIP
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Journalists at LBC, which ran London’s two independent speech radio stations, were told the company would carry on broadcasting despite going into receivership.
EVENING POST UP FOR SALE
It was a huge shock. One of the country’s bestknown regional evenings, the Nottingham Evening Post, was put on the market by owner T Bailey Forman. At the time it was extremely rare for a major regional title such as the Evening Post to be available. Northcliffe won the race to buy the paper. The deal was a precursor to a period of intensive buying and selling in the regional press which saw the biggest group, Thomson Regional Newspapers, sold to Trinity and many big dailies changing hands.
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JOHNSTON BUYS FIRST DAILY
One ambitious regional group on the acquisition trail was Johnston Press. It had just splashed out £29m on the Halifax Courier –
its first daily – and seven associated titles.
D’ANCONA MOVES UP AT THE TIMES
Matthew d’Ancona was made an assistant editor at The Times at the age of 26. Insiders tipped him as a future editor of the paper. He had joined The Times as a trainee less than three years earlier from Oxford. D’Ancona is now on The Sunday Telegraph and was last month named Political Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards.
FRITH EDITS SMASH HITS AT 23
Mark Frith, who has turned Heat into a winner for Emap, was appointed editor of the company’s pop title Smash Hits. Frith, then 23, succeeded Mike Soutar and was the youngest editor in the history of the magazine. Soutar went on to find fame and fortune with FHM and is now editorial director of IPC.
MIRROR STEALS SUN’S SCOOP
There was fun and games at the Daily Mirror after Sun executive Christopher Roycroft-Davis went on the radio and previewed a
scoop on Dudley Moore’s wedding due in the next day’s paper. Mirror journalists swiftly shoved the story into their own paper, marked it “exclusive” and added the made-up byline “Roy Croft”.
‘COP KILLER’ TARGETS EDITORS
Editors on London local newpapers were sent fake bullets through the mail, with the cryptic message: “On April 21 I start to settle the score.” The message was signed “The Cop Killer”. Newspapers in Ealing, Southall, Hammersmith, Fulham and Kensington all received the mystery packages. Police suggested they were linked to a book launch
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