MARCH 1995
BY JON SLATTERY
Rise of the middle class
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A new report revealed that middle-class graduates were dominating the intake of trainee journalists. The Guild of Editors’
report showed that two-thirds of trainees described themselves as
middle-class and 68 per cent were graduates. While editors complained
that not enough working-class recruits were entering journalism,
trainees claimed that starting salaries were so low they had had to go
into debt or turn to their families for financial help. The report said
that nearly half of trainees (47 per cent) were paid between £6,000 and
£8,000 a year.
Weekly gets Leeson exclusive
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Watford Free Observer reporter Lindsay Eastwood got an exclusive
interview with the family of Barings Bank rogue trader Nick Leeson.
Eastwood turned down £5,000 offered by a national newspaper to disclose
the secret address where she interviewed Leeson’s father and two
sisters. Eastwood told Press Gazette : “I would have shot myself in the
foot if I had sold it, because the family would never have spoken to me
again.”
Landmark victory Central TV had won a landmark victory in the High
Court backing its right to broadcast an interview with serial killer
Dennis Nilsen. The Home Office had tried to block the interview but the
High Court rejected its application to injunct the programme.
Photographer wrongly arrested
Photographer David Hoffman won £25,000 damages against the
Metropolitan Police after he was wrongly arrested while covering a
demonstration.
Hoffman said he had been assaulted, falsely imprisoned and the
subject of a malicious prosecution. A photograph proving the time of
his arrest, which conflicted with police evidence, helped clear his
name. He took this picture of himself in his cell.
PA picks Potts
Paul Potts had been chosen as the new editor of the Press
Association. His appointment followed a search by headhunters among
both the national and regional press for a successor to Colin Webb.
Potts was then deputy editor of the Daily Express.
Citizen pulls plug on West social worker The Citizen, Gloucester,
exposed a social worker trying to cash in on the Fred and Rose West
“House of Horrors” murders. The social worker was suspended after the
paper revealed he had tried to sell the addresses where Fred West’s
children were living “for the price of a new car” and eventually asked
for £10,000.
Double-top!
For the first time the Press Gazette Regional Newspaper of the Year award was shared.
The
joint winners were The News, Portsmouth, then edited by Geoff Elliott,
and the Belfast Telegraph, edited by Ed Curran who is still in the
chair. They are pictured with National Heritage secretary Stephen
Dorrell.
£45,000 for ‘fascist’ error Film weekly Screen
International had paid out an estimated £45,000 in damages and costs
after a sub-editing blunder led to film director Franco Zefferelli
being wrongly described as a fascist member of the Italian parliament.
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