Medway News

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Established in 1855 as the Military Chronicle and Naval Spectator and for most of its life the Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham News, the Medway News is a weekly newspaper covering the Medway Towns in Kent, England. It is published from offices in New Road Avenue, Chatham, and is one of a series of newspapers that includes the Medway Standard and the free Medway Adscene.

The Medway News is published on a Friday, the Medway Standard on Tuesday and Adscene on Wednesday. The titles were known as Chatham News (or “Roch-Chat-Gill”) and Chatham Standard, respectively, until the mid 1990s. The Medway News features general news, a leisure section, a business page, a film review, comment, village news and sport. The Medway Standard specialises in sports news, particularly coverage of Gillingham Football Club, comes with a supplement called The Guide that contains a leisure section, fashion and music pages, and an extended film review. Until late 2006, the News featured a Memories page, written by Stephen Rayner.

Previous reporters at the newspaper include Martin Brunt, now crime correspondent for Sky News, Peter Salmon, later controller of BBC One, Robert Tyrer, now associate editor of The Sunday Times, Harry Arnold, a royal reporter at The Sun, and John Williams, a political editor at The Daily Mirror and the London Evening Standard, and author of a draft of the September Dossier for war in Iraq. The editor since 2001 is Diane Nicholls and the news editor is Nicola Jordan.

The Medway News is part of Kent Regional Newspapers group, owned since July 2007 by by Northcliffe Media. Other titles in Kent Regional Newspapers include the East Kent Gazette, the Whitstable Times, Herne Bay Times, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Thanet Times, Folkestone Herald, Dover Express and a series of free Adscene newspapers covering areas including Canterbury, Ashford and Maidstone.

[edit] History

The first editor-proprietor of the News was Henry Clayton, a local bookseller, who soon discovered he needed a journalist, and brought in Joseph Foster from The Spectator.

Foster eventually became sole proprietor. When he died in 1885 his heirs sold to Parrett & Neves, publishers of the East Kent Gazette at Sittingbourne, George Neves becoming editor. He died in 1921.

Neves was succeeded C P Wootton, H J Ross, Harry Couchman, and Eddie Albon. In 1959, Graham Parrett — great grandson of W J Parrett, whose company bought the News in 1885 — became editor and stayed in that role until 1968 when he became managing director of Parrett & Neves' publishing company, Associated Kent Newspapers. His deputy Eric Wintle was promoted to editor and stayed in that role briefly (he later became the company’s editorial director) before Gerald Hinks took the editor’s chair in 1970. Hinks, a former editor of the Sheerness Times Guardian and East Kent Gazette, took the News and its sister paper the Chatham Standard through an era of great success and won many national newspaper awards. His editorship, characterised by a string of exclusive stories and robust journalism, was marred by the closure of Chatham Dockyard in 1984, an event that caused severe depression to the Medway towns’ fortunes, huge social change, and the circulation of the News. Staff during this time include Michael Pearce, later editor of the Isle of Thanet Gazette and Thanet Times, Frank Dunkley, Jimmy Hodge, Ted Connolly and Christine Rayner, since 1995 editor of the East Kent Gazette series.

In 1988 Parrett & Neves sold Associated Kent Newspapers to Emap. During this ownership, Hinks was replaced by John McElhill, formerly of the Mid-Sussex Times. The circulation dipped further. The group was subsequently sold to its hated rivals, the Canterbury-based freesheet publishing group Adscene. McElhill resigned and was succeeded by Murray Evans, a former deputy editor of the News and editor of the East Kent Gazette. Evans was succeeded in 2001 by his deputy, Diane Nicholls. The publishing group went through three more owners, Denitz and Southnews and Trinity Mirror. Northcliffe Media bought Trinity's Kent titles, including the News, in July 2007.

[edit] The News office

The News was initially published from and printed from 30 High Street, Chatham. In the late 1960s, after production was centralised at Crown Quay Lane, Sittingbourne, the building was sold to the BBC, from which BBC Radio Medway was launched in 1970. The News moved to a nearby building at 12 New Road Avenue, Chatham. A Rochester branch office, in the High Street near the cathedral green, closed in the early 1960s; the Gillingham branch office shut two decades later.

[edit] External links

• Stephen Rayner's memories
• [1]

[edit] Sources

• Company records of Parrett & Neves
• Kelly's Directory of Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and Strood

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