Murray steps up to take editor’s chair at Tribune

By Des Cryan in Dublin

The new editor of Dublin broadsheet the Sunday Tribune is Paddy Murray. He succeeds Matt Cooper, who has quit the post to present the Today FM flagship programme The Last Word following the departure of star broadcaster Eamonn Dunphy.

Murray, deputy editor of the Sunday Tribune for the past four years, previously held the same post on the Irish Star and before that was assistant editor of the Evening Herald. He had been recruited from the Star by Cooper.

The Sunday Tribune has also announced the appointment of the paper’s managing director, Jim Farrelly, as editor-in-chief of the paper, in a move seen as strengthening the influence of Independent Newspapers on the direction of the paper, in which it has a substantial shareholding.

Farrelly, a former features editor of the Irish Independent and an investigative specialist, retains his post as managing director of the Sunday Tribune. The Tribune’s current circulation is 85,000, down from a high of 100,000 in the 1990s.

Tribune Newspapers chairman Gordon Colleary, in a statement linking the appointment of Murray with the new role assigned to Farrelly, said the board was confident the move would `further enhance the reputation of the Sunday Tribune.