By Hamish Mackay
A 32-page tabloid newspaper is to be launched in the Orkney Islands in the autumn.
Orkney Today will be the second weekly newspaper set up in the Highlands and Islands this year – The Hebridean was launched in the Western islands in mid-April.
Behind the venture is Kirkwall-based freelance photojournalist Ken Amer, who has run his business in the Orkney Islands for the past 17 years.
Orkney Today will be a direct challenge to The Orcadian weekly newspaper, which has been published since 1854 and recently hired Stewart Laundy as its new editor.
Amer already has the finance in place and the paper, which will have four pages of colour initially, will be printed by North of Scotland Newspapers in Dingwall. It will have a print run of 11,000 – the same as The Orcadian’s current circulation.
The Orkney Islands did have two weeklies at one time, but the Orkney Herald folded in 1961.
Amer has already hired a pre-press operative and is now recruiting an editor and two reporters.
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