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Daily editor quits to spend more time with family

A regional daily editor has quit his job to be nearer his family after announcing five redundancies at his paper.

Dave King became editor of the Swindon Advertiser in 2007, moving from the role of deputy editor at Southampton daily the Southern Daily Echo.

However his famly remained in the Southampton area and Dave has now decided to relocate back to the South Coast.

One of his last acts as editor was to conclude a consultation on a proposal for five editorial redundancies in Swindon – three copytakers, a librarian and a photographic technician.   Each of the staff affected will leave on Friday.

Dave spoke of his decision in an interview with Swindon LInk, a local community news website.

He said: “I’m really sorry to be leaving Swindon because it is a terrific town with wonderful people. I have made many friends here.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed editing the Swindon Advertiser and was privileged to work with a very talented team of journalists. But equally, I’m very excited about my own future.”

The new Advertiser editor is understood to be Gary Lawrence, currently editor of Newsquest’s Wiltshire weekly titles, who has assumed the role of group editor for Newsquest Wiltshire.

The change comes at a time of considerable upheaval for the paper, with the production operation moving to the newly-created subbing hub at Oxford, 30 miles away.

But in his interview Dave said speculation that the Advertiser would eventually become a bi-weekly or weekly title was “wide of the mark.”

He said: “I can assure you that at this moment in time there are absolutely no plans for the Adver to go weekly. In fact, with the newspaper and website it’s not so straightforward to turn a daily newspaper into a weekly because of the loss of circulation and advertising revenues.

“Yes, trading is tough for the Adver, as it is for most of the media, but in April the Adver was the best performing of all of the Newsquest daily titles in terms of newspaper sales, and we had more than two million page impressions on our website for April.”

The five redundancies were announced in a memo to staff last Friday, Dave’s last day in the office.

“After careful consideration through consultations with those whose roles were at risk of redundancy, I have decided to go ahead with the proposal,” he said.

“It is extremely regretful that these difficult decisions have had to be made during very tough trading conditions.”

Gary is expected to begin his new role on Monday 13 June.

10 comments

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  • June 1, 2011 at 3:22 pm
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    I am so sorry for Dave leaving a job he loved. These horrible rationalisations will leave the regional press without heart or soul – and probably without any readers worth adding up. I feel so fortunate to have been editing newspapers when they mattered, though even then I had to make people redundant. Dave’s departure is the loss of another talented journalist. Does anyone running the industry care?

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  • June 1, 2011 at 6:03 pm
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    On behalf of Emnico Technologies I’d like to wish Dave good luck. As a company we’ve been a regular advertiser with the group and as chair of the Federation of Small Businesses I have personally been a regular contributer to the newspaper. Dave will be missed locally. A thoroughly nice guy.

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  • June 1, 2011 at 6:04 pm
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    Like Geoff, I’m very sorry to hear Dave has left the industry. I worked with him years ago, and more recently have been privileged to work with him in his capacity as a very valued NCTJ journalism board colleague. The industry needs people like him, and he’s doing his damnest to make sure the next generation carry the baton.

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  • June 1, 2011 at 6:13 pm
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    A difficult story to report in a straight-down-the-middle sort of way. But well done, HTFP, on giving us scope to read between the lines.

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  • June 2, 2011 at 8:40 am
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    @Geoff
    Clearly a talented editor/leader (so they tell me!) and a tough-talking chap, with some principles and generally sound and informed views about what’s going on. Cares about our industry.
    But, but, but….who are you to say you edited papers
    “when they mattered”?
    My papers matter, to me and the people I work with. And every day we do our damndest to make sure they matter to our readers. End of rant.

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  • June 3, 2011 at 10:59 am
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    @Parvenu

    But they don’t matter as much now do they? Hence the declining ABC figures. The majority are stripped to the bone, and the result has been inevitable.
    And anyone claiming their readership has switched to the internet is deluded. They haven’t.
    Stick your ABC figures/unique page impressions/total readership up on here and we’ll have a chat about them. If you like.

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  • June 3, 2011 at 11:58 am
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    Hi Claire
    Well in any four-week period I will sell just over 160,000 papers (running about -5 on last year’s ABC) and distribute another 162,000 frees to a wide area. UUs are around 50,000 a month, about 30pc up on last year, but we have been putting in a lot of effort on the web. There’s a monthly free glossy mag and about six stand-alones during the course of the year.
    Not sure whether this is the basis for a chat! I’m sure it’s a similar story to many newspaper centres around the country. The point I was making to Geoff was that to us, anyway, it still seems as if it matters!

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  • June 3, 2011 at 12:55 pm
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    @Parv

    160,000 of one title?

    And down 5 per cent is pretty good the way the whole thing is going, to be fair. Still going down though, and that’s why Geoff’s original point stands – it doesn’t matter as much as it did.

    ‘Unique users’ are the figures trotted out for advertisers. They’re always vastly overinflated. No-one reads local papers on the web. It’s a sop for advertisers and an excuse made by management for getting rid of journalists.

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  • June 16, 2011 at 2:30 pm
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    Dave was an excellent editor of the Adver and his departure is a loss to the paper and the local community. Dave spent a lot of his free time supporting good causes in the town and this had a very positive impact on the reputation of the Adver. His contribution will be missed. His backing of the Swindon Mindful Employer Network and particularly it’s annual conference over the last few years was very much appreciated.

    I wish him and his successor Gary every success in the future.

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