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Society welcomes new president

Stephen Parker, managing director of Trinity Mirror’s regional newspapers, has been appointed as The Newspaper Society’s new president.

He was welcomed into the role during a meeting of the Society’s council, where he outlined a number of key challenges which he hopes to address in order to maintain the “regional press’s current impressive performance”.

Stephen (pictured) told members: “I come to the presidency believing passionately in our industry, its traditional strengths and future opportunities, as well as being cheered by its growing market share and advertising revenue performance.

“We have a number of key challenges: To battle with Government to ensure that editorial, advertising and management freedoms are not eroded. To explain to regulators that we compete in a multimedia market place, not in a restricted and confined local newspaper market place.

“To convince agencies and advertisers that we are a forward-looking industry to be judged on our growing total audience reach. To show our effectiveness as an advertising medium to national advertisers and build on our media-leading research programme. And to counter any online threats to our revenues.

“The regional press’s current impressive performance is not God-given. It is built on our companies’ ability to adapt publications, brands and services to consumers’ and advertisers’ changing lifestyles and business needs, and, above all, to compete within a media industry which is ever more varied and competitive.

“Our competitive position has been built and developed by embracing newspaper production and distribution advances, internet and mobile phone technology, and launching a growing range of new publications and media platforms.

“Building and developing on this platform will be key to our ongoing success.”

Stephen joined the board of Trinity Mirror in 1993 and was appointed executive director of regional newspapers (North) in September 1999.

He was appointed managing director in September 2000.

Prior to joining the Trinity Mirror board, Stephen was managing director of Trinity Weekly Newspapers and has also held posts at the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo and Thomson Regional Newspapers.

Stephen took over the presidency from John Robertson, deputy chairman of the Newbury Weekly News. A new president is elected from the membership each July.

This year’s vice-president is Sir Nicholas Hewitt, chairman and managing director of the Barnsley Chronicle.

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