A former regional press journalist who trained some well-known figures in television news has died after a stroke.

Graham Phoenix started out as a junior reporter on Stoke-on-Trent’s The Sentinel at the age of 18 and spent the rest of his life working in journalism or PR.

He later went on to train Dave Mannion, now editor-in-chief of ITV News, and ITN journalist Terry Lloyd, who was killed by American soldiers in Iraq in 2003.

Graham died aged 67 after suffering a stroke last month and son Chris paid tribute to him.

He said: “He trained Dave Mannion and Terry Lloyd up while he was at Raymonds News Agency in Derby. They were apprentices to him. Terry used to come and babysit for me.

“He loved his job. He lived for words and reading. He could write about anything.

“He didn’t like using computers and wrote everything by hand until he was forced to start using them.”

After starting out in journalism at The Sentinel, Graham went on to work for Raymonds in 1962 before becoming a press officer with the Central Office of Information in Birmingham in 1973, where he spent five years.

He then became editor of the Newcastle Advertiser before leaving in the 1980s to start his own series of newspapers, The Promoter Group.

Graham sold the group five years later and moved to the Leek Post and Times in the late 1990s, where he latterly worked on the Uttoxeter edition.

Comments

JohnPMellor OBE., QSM., (08/09/2010 11:14:13)
Journalism has lost a character, and a first clas Journalist. Not a man to suffer fool easily. I knew him for 35 years. A great loss. John Mellor former, Police Superintendent and city Councillor(wolverhampton) Uxonian

Philip Dalling (08/09/2010 11:38:27)
Worked with Graham at COI in Birmingham in the late 1970s.
Saying he was a character is an understatement. Great journalist too.