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Dimond takes charge of biggest-selling weekly

Nine of Kent Messenger Group’s weeklies will now come under the responsibility of Bob Dimond, who has been appointed senior editor (north and west Kent).

His responsibility has expanded from the Medway Messenger and Medway Extra to embrace the six editions of the big-selling Kent Messenger, as well as the Sheerness Times Guardian, Maidstone Extra, Sittingbourne Extra, the Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells Extras and the newly launched Sevenoaks Extra.

He takes over from Ron Green who has been promoted to group editorial manager, deputy to editorial director Simon Irwin.

  • Bob Dimond
  • Bob, (40), said: “It’s a huge honour to be given the opportunity to edit Britain’s biggest selling local weekly newspaper.

    “It’s great to finally edit my local paper. The Kent Messenger is an integral part of the life of tens of thousands of readers every week and I want to build on the success the paper already enjoys.

    “People reading their local editions are reading very local news stories from their area balanced with county-wide stories. We are the county paper of the county town and have a responsibility to reflect that.”

    After training at the Editorial Centre in Hastings, Bob began his journalism career as a trainee on the Bath Chronicle in 1983. He worked his way up to assistant editor before joining the York Evening Press as deputy editor in 1992.

    In 1995 he became editor of the Evening Echo in Basildon before joining the Maidstone-based Kent Messenger Group (KMG) in April 1997 as design editor of Kent Today. From there he became editor of the Gravesend Messenger in 1999, launched the Dartford Messenger the following year and went to be editor of Medway Today in April 2000.

    Bob became senior editor for the whole of the North Kent region – covering Medway, Gravesend and Dartford – in 2001, launched the Friday edition of the Medway Messenger in September 2001 and oversaw the switch from the Medway Today to the bi-weekly Medway Messenger in April 2003.

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