Northcliffe managing director Alec Davidson (pictured) has taken over as president of the Newspaper Society.

He was installed at the Society’s Council of Members and told them: “The regional press is and needs to be part of the mainstream of media life. Life is local and it is moving our way.

“The purpose I have set for my presidential year is to do everything I can to make this industry stronger economically and politically – for individual businesses and for the Newspaper Society as a whole.

“I believe the regional press does have a fundamental role to act as the eyes and ears of the public.”

But he warned there were new threats to press freedom and the public’s right to know from a combination of Government legislation and legislative proposals.

He cited threats to journalists’ sources and investigations, a flawed Freedom of Information Bill, forthcoming court reporting restrictions, libel laws and the effect of the Defamation Act 1996 and the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998.

He said they would leave journalists enmeshed within their contradictions and inconsistencies and handicapped in their ability to find out and report what was going on in their communities.

Speaking at a journalists’ reception, he said the industry had to remain alert to challenges posed by media ownership regulations, changes in media consumption and newspaper dot.com links.

Alec Davidson succeeds James Evans CBE who, as chairman of Bristol United Press, was president for the year from July 1999.

Alec has been MD of Northcliffe Newspapers since 1995. He was previously deputy managing director, taking over when his predecessor Ian Park retired.

Northcliffe is Britain’s third largest regional newspaper group, and is owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust.

He started his newspaper career in 1967 at the Aylesford research and development centre, part of Reed Paper Group. In 1969 he joined Thomson Regional Newspapers as operational research executive for Thomson Group Marketing Services, moving on to work in classified and circulation departments in London, Cardiff, Teesside, Hemel Hempstead and Reading.

By 1978 he was assistant MD of the Evening Gazette in Teesside and in 1981 was appointed deputy MD of the Western Mail & Echo. He joined Northcliffe in 1984 as MD of the Western Times Company in Exeter and was MD of the Western Morning News Company in Plymouth from 1986 to 1989.

He has been a member of the Newspaper Society’s Council since 1990 and is a former chairman of the South West Federation. He is a former non-executive director of West Country Television.

The society’s new vice president is Edwin Boorman, chairman of Kent Messenger Group.

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