New Sun editor David Dinsmore has agreed to ban ‘byline banditry’ at The Sun after the issue was highlighted by Press Gazette.
Freelance journalist Sheron Boyle wrote of her anger at a Sun staffer insisting on taking a byline on a piece which she had submitted.
After raising the issue directly with Dinsmore he phoned her last week and said: “I agreed with your piece, I’ve spoken to all the desk heads and they’ve agreed it [byline banditry] makes no sense and it won’t happen again.
“The policy has ended. We want to encourage people to come to us with stories but unless the staff person is adding value to a story, I can’t see any reason for their name to be added.”
This week a freelance told Press Gazette they had been warned by a staffer at the Daily Mirror that their features would not be used if they insisted on having their own byline. A spokesman for the paper denied that this was the paper’s policy and said that bylines were allocated on a case by case basis.
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