Peter Barron from The Northern Echo has just celebrated the tenth anniversary of occupying the editor’s chair.
Previously deputy editor with the Newsquest title, Peter oversaw the Echo’s switch from broadsheet to tabloid – the biggest change to the paper in its 139-year history.
He has since become a regular blogger and it was here that he took a look back at the Echo’s stories on the day he took over the hot seat in 1999.
Here is his anniversary blog post in full.
A virulent flu bug was making front page news, with North-East hospitals warning that operations might have to be cancelled.
The second story on page one was about the town of Shildon being shortlisted for an offshoot of the National Railway Museum. It was up against Glasgow and Cardiff and no-one really thought Shildon’s fantasy could come true.
The prospect of a North-East elected assembly moved closer as ministers signalled a major change in the way regions were to be governed. The Northern Echo went on to campaign in favour of an elected regional assembly, but North-East voters rejected the idea in a 2004 referendum.
I’ll always remember, on the day of the result, being interviewed by a BBC TV reporter called Danny Savage on Palace Green in Durham City. He was very nice off-air, then opened with the words: “Peter Barron, editor of The Northern Echo. You urged your readers to vote ‘yes’. They voted ‘no’ in overwhelming numbers. You clearly don’t know your readers, do you?” I admit that I considered punching him.
Advertising watchdogs had refused to give the go-ahead for an advert for Middlesbrough-based HS Interiors because a jacuzzi scene showed a woman’s nipple for a third of a second.
Police were busily compiling the world’s largest database of ear impressions at Harperley Hall, County Durham. They’d collected 1,200 ear-prints and were hopeful of getting it up to 2,000.
Paul Harker, of Darlington Police, explained: “I heard of a case where an ear-print was taken from a window where a burglar had been listening for signs of movement in a house.”
There were cauliflower ears everywhere as West Hartlepool recorded their first rugby union win at Victoria Park with a 21-17 triumph over mighty Wasps.
And, finally, on the football front, a national survey found that St James’ Park was the ground where fans were most likely to hear swearing and obscene chanting. And that was ten years before Joe Kinnear got there!
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