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July 8, 2004updated 22 Nov 2022 1:42pm

Barrie Harding: editor of the Sunday Independent in Devon

By Press Gazette

Barrie Harding, formerly the editor of the Devon edition of the Sunday Independent, has died at the age of 86.

Barrie was the editor during the period when the Sunday Independent was a main vehicle in the training of journalists as part of the Mirror Group of newspapers.

He had an outstanding career as a journalist and foreign correspondent, during which he served across the world, including in Paris and New York.

He covered such world-changing events as the assassination of John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King’s freedom marches in Alabama and the first US rocket launch at Cape Canaveral.

On leaving his West Country home at Newton Abbot, he and his wife moved to Kent.

There, Barrie joined charitable trust the Thomson Foundation as a lecturer, training journalists from Third World countries.

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His greatest achievement, perhaps, was to be in a small group of British journalists who helped Chinese students launch the first Englishlanguage newspaper in Beijing. The China Daily is still produced in China, Hong Kong, Europe and America.

He died at his home in Ramsgate.

Reg Scott, former managing director, West of England Newspapers

Reg Scott

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