A former regional press reporter who went on to become a legendary figure in the journalism trade press has died aged 86.

Jean Morgan, left, started out on the Bridgend Advertiser as a trainee in 1954 and went on to work for the Bedfordshire Times, Leicestershire Evening Mail and South Wales Echo.

From there she graduated to the London Office of the Echo’s then publisher, Thomson Regional Newspapers, where her assignments included interviewing pop stars and covering the Paris fashion shows.

But she found her true niche in 1984 when she joined Press Gazette, which was at that time the only publication dedicated to covering the journalism industry.

Former PG deputy editor Jon Slattery wrote: “Jean was a news editor’s dream. She had fantastic contacts and was a brilliant story getter. Journalists always took her calls because they wanted to know what she knew.

“Jean joined UK Press Gazette, as it was then in 1984, but her roots were very much in newspapers and the regional press. She regarded UKPG as a newspaper and not a magazine.

“She was passionate about national and local newspapers and the importance of a free press. Jean was trusted by tabloid journalists and editors at a time when they felt under fire from the “posh” papers and broadcasters and were often reluctant to speak publicly and put their head above the parapet to defend themselves.

“She was fearless and liked to bypass PR offices and go straight to the source. I remember Jean putting it bluntly to an evasive editor about the sudden departure of two of his staff: “I heard that you caught them rogering each other on your desk.”

Piers Morgan, who briefly owned Press Gazette along with Matthew Freud, described Jean as “a brilliant journalist, tenacious, mischievous, and a relentless scoop-breaker. RIP.”

Jean was awarded the the MBE for services to journalism in 2002 before retiring the following year.

While working at the South Wales Echo she had met and married Phil Morgan who went on to be a news editor at the Sun.

In recent years Jean had moved from London to Falmouth to live near her daughter, Clare, a journalist who works in university communications.