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September 25, 2003updated 22 Nov 2022 1:21pm

Back Issues 25.09.03

By Press Gazette

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

The London Press Club, which for 82 years had admitted only men, was due to hold an informal meeting at which one of the items to be raised by chairman Jim Manning was whether women journalists should be allowed to join.

He told Press Gazette: “My personal view is that we may go into our 83rd year having put right a
dreadful wrong.”

The Birmingham Press Club had gone over to mixed membership in July.

MORNING BOYCOTT

In a protest at the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Sheffield Morning Telegraph launched a campaign to boycott a concert by the USSR State Orchestra at the City Hall.

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Editor Michael Finlay said the paper had had one of its heaviest postbags on the issue, with many letters containing returned tickets for the concert. The campaign left one in five seats empty for the concert. The Morning Telegraph carried a
front-page message in Russian giving the reasons for its campaign, which were distributed to the orchestra.

“We admire your art but detest your imperialistic, brutal dictatorship,” it said.

UNION DISPUTE HITS CARTOONISTS

Frustrated cartoonists were unable to comment on the Czech situation because of a block-making dispute between the SLADE and NPA print unions.

Express pocket cartoonist Osbert Lancaster wrote to The Times, asking: “May I, who am not primarily a political cartoonist, express, on behalf of my colleagues who are, a hope that SLADE and the NPA may soon come to some agreement whereby we shall be allowed to fulfil our modest role at a time when the impulse to testify is overwhelming?” Press Gazette responded by printing cartoons by  mmings, Jak and Belsky that could not be published by their newspapers.

CZECH SECURITY TIGHTENS UP

Western journalists in Czechoslovakia were bracing themselves for a clampdown. The Czech Foreign Ministry had announced that no more journalists would be allowed to enter the country until further notice. Russian security staff had called on the Hotel Esplanade in Prague, where  most Western correspondents were staying, and taken the names of all the journalists.

JAMESON IN ‘ABDUCTION’

A beaming Derek Jameson was pictured on the front page of Press Gazette at his leaving presentation at the Sunday Mirror in Manchester. As assistant editor he had helped to pioneer the paper’s Irish web offset print. He was presented with a gold watch and a mock-up Sunday Mirror front page, headlined “Web man in abduction horror”, by northern editor Jack Stoneley.

Jameson, who went on to edit the Daily Express and the Daily Star, was moving to London as production editor.

Among others pictured are Irish editor Gordon Clack, deputy sports editor Alan Tweedie, sports sub-editor Willy Sinclair, chief sub-editor Derek Dodd and news desk secretary Wendy Dutton.

REPORTERS CLASH WITH POLICE

Three Fleet Street journalists were clubbed by a plain-clothes policeman while covering the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

Winston S Churchill, special correspondent for the London Evening News, Stephen Barber of The Sunday Telegraph and Dominic Harrod of The Daily Telegraph were attacked while helping a girl injured in clashes between police, national guardsmen and demonstrators.

Press Gazette reported: “It was the second brush in a week for Mr Churchill with the city’s cosh-happy police.”

He had been seized and roughly handled by police when he tried to return to his hotel during another fracas.

EXPRESS DEFEATS KRAY GAG

An attempt by Reggie Kray to have a banimposed on reports of his committal pro-ceedings was defeated in the High Court after objections by lawyers acting for the Express.

The paper said: “The Daily Express has appeared in the High Court to preserve what little is left of the public’s right to know what is going on in committal proceedings in mag-istrates’ courts. The fault lies entirelywith Parliament.

A stupid law has been enacted restricting the reporting of committal proceedings.

The law should be repealed.” Kray and his brothers faced charges including involvement in the murder of an unnamed “male person”.

 

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