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Group editor to quit JP along with wife

A journalist couple who married this year after initially meeting 20 years ago have announced they are leaving Johnston Press.

Nick Woodhead, editor of the Lynn News and the Fenland Citizen as well as group editor of the Spalding titles, is to leave the regional publisher in September.

Also leaving the business at the same time will be his wife, Jenefer Woodhead, who works as the company’s internal communications officer.

The couple, who married earlier this year after meeting while working on the Grantham Journal more than 20 years ago, requested voluntary redundancy last October.

Said Nick, 57:  “Jenefer and I have had long and happy careers but decided to step forward for voluntary redundancy when it was offered last year.

“We want to spend some quality time together, enjoying our married life and sharing new adventures.”

Nick began his career with EMAP in 1982 at the Stamford Mercury, became editor at the Melton Times, then led the Grantham Journal for 14 years, achieving an unbroken 22 consecutive ABC increases before leaving to oversee the Spalding Guardian and Lincolnshire Free Press.

Group roles followed with the setting up of central subbing in Peterborough and managing that unit and others in Sheffield and Edinburgh.

Nick, who was in the vanguard of implementing the first phase of the new Cases templating designs, took up his current post in King’s Lynn at the end of 2012.

Jenefer, 50, who has been with Johnston Press for almost 22 years, started her career on a weekly newspaper in Canada where she lived for 10 years.

She joined EMAP in 1992 as a sub-editor at the Scarborough Citizen before moving to the Grantham Journal where she was deputy editor for 14 years, working alongside Nick for all of that time.

After a spell editing three of the company’s lifestyle magazines out of Stamford before moving to the Peterborough hub as head of special publications.

Jenefer also helped train reporters in the Midlands in the new Atex editorial system before taking on her current role four years ago.

Since then her work has included setting up and managing The Word, the in-company newsletter and website.

Current deputy editor Mark Leslie will become acting editor of the Lynn News pending a permanent appointment.

7 comments

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  • July 28, 2014 at 8:11 am
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    Enhanced VR was clearly a no brainer: being JP internal communications officer must have become very depressing. Wishing the couple all the best for the future.

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  • July 28, 2014 at 4:36 pm
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    Errr – the headline is a tad misleading. ‘Group editor and wife to quit JP’ perhaps . . . unless there’s a fact missing . . .

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  • July 29, 2014 at 11:17 am
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    Good luck to them both. VR again taking experience and talent out of company. But it prefers cheap, green kids

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  • July 29, 2014 at 6:14 pm
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    You have played a brilliant innings Nick. Will write to you soon. Not exactly the news I expected on my 77th birthday!

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  • August 4, 2014 at 11:43 pm
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    Good look for the future. A good journalist and a great editor. Proper newspaper man.

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