By Sarah Lagan
Belfast Telegraph editor Ed Curran is to become editor-in-chief of
Independent News & Media’s Telegraph Group after 12 years in the
seat.
A new editor of the Belfast Telegraph is expected to be appointed by the autumn.
Curran
predicts the paper will fight the downward sales trend among evening
newspapers in the coming ABCs, following the launch of a morning
edition of the broadsheet evening.
His time in charge has been a
period in which the paper – which has a circulation of 91,505 – has
taken a leading role in supporting the Northern Ireland peace process.
He has also taken the Saturday edition tabloid.
In his new role,
Curran will oversee editorial policy for The Belfast Telegraph, Sunday
Life and the Community Telegraph. He said: “I believe the Belfast
Telegraph sales figures will be bucking the trend for evening papers.
The trend now is to give information throughout the day and we
shouldn’t be pigeonholed into being evening or morning papers. The
industry is changing and those who produce the ABCs have to take
account of that.
“The Belfast Telegraph has changed from a paper
that has had to cover terrorist conflicts to one where people
arerebuilding Belfast.
“It’s down to the editors to make sure the papers reflect the society in which they exist. That is the challenge.”
Curran
was launch editor of Sunday Life from 1988 to 1993 and under his
editorship the paper was named Press Gazette’s regional newspaper of
the year in 1991.
The following year he was seconded to Wales on
Sunday and became acting editor. In 1993 he was appointed editor of The
Belfast Telegraph where he has remained ever since.
He was
elected president of the Society of Editors in 2001 and was appointed a
member of the Press Complaints Commission in 2002.
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