FLY AWAY PETER, SAYS MP
Labour MP Brian Sedgemore was calling for the resignation of Guardian editor Peter Preston for handing over a leaked memo to the Ministry of Defence about cruise missiles at Greenham Common. The Guardian surrendered the document after losing an appeal against a court order obtained by the MoD. Sedgemore said in a Commons motion: “Mr Preston has put his source at risk and rendered the person concerned liable to criminal prosecution.” The “mole”, Foreign Office clerk Sarah Tisdall, was subsequently sacked and jailed for six months for breaching the Official Secrets Act.
MAXWELL’S HOUSE GROWS
Robert Maxwell had confirmed plans to launch a London evening paper by the end of the year. In fact it took a little longer than planned. The London Daily News was launched as a direct challenge to the Evening Standard in February 1987. But it would last only five months and folded in July 1987.
SUNDAY SALES SOAR
The Mail on Sunday, launched in May 1982, had become a runaway success story. Latest ABC figures showed that in the six months to December 1983, The MoS had increased its circulation by more than 50 per cent to 1.5 million.
REGIONAL FIRST FOR KENT
This shot of child-killer Robert France snarling at an angry crowd outside a court won Lincolnshire Echo photographer Derrick Kent the Nikon Press Photograph of the Month award. It was the first time the prize had gone to a photographer outside Fleet Street.
NO NEWS IS BAD NEWS
BBC television’s Nine O’Clock News was not broadcast for the first time in its history because of a dispute with the NUJ chapel, which called a meeting just before it was due to go out. The journalists were in dispute over the introduction of computerised newsgathering equipment.
KNIGHTS AT THE EXPRESS TABLE
Daily Mail editor-in-chief Sir David English was pictured with a beaming grin reading the Daily Express in the Express’s newsroom. He was perusing a farewell tribute issue for Jim “Nick” Nicholl, who was retiring as foreign editor. Three other Fleet Street knights were at the leaving do. Daily Express editor Sir Larry Lamb, Sir John Junor of the Sunday Express and Sir Edward Pickering, a
former Daily Express editor.
Press Gazette also reported on its front page that Derek Jameson had resigned as editor of the News of the World to concentrate on his radio and television work. His replacement was Nick Lloyd, editor of the Sunday People. He went on to edit the Daily Express and was knighted in 1991.
JUST FOR THE RECORD…
A young looking Alex Ferguson, then manager of Aberdeen Football Club, was pictured with Daily Record sports editor Charles Smith (left) and Aberdeen-based sports writer Ian Broadley. They had just presented Ferguson with a silver cup, provided by the Record, for winning the European Super Cup with a 2-0 victory over Hamburg. The newspaper stepped in after Uefa, the European soccer controlling body, admitted it had no trophy to present.
THE STARK REALITIES
A tape recording stolen from Prince Andrew’s ex-girlfriend Koo Stark and said to contain her most intimate thoughts about the prince was being offered for sale to newspaper and magazine publishers. A copy sent to The Mail on Sunday was handed over to Stark’s representatives. MoS editor Stewart Steven said the MoS’s contact had obtained the copy because he “believed it was the only way the Continental press could be pre-empted”.
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