A former weekly editor has written a new novel based on life on a local newspaper in the 1970s.
Death by Mistake, by Phil Pledger, has been published in the Kindle Store.
Phil, left, former editor of the Rutland and Stamford Mercury, the Western Gazette and the Whitby Gazette, says his story is fictional, but will “resonate with any journalist” who worked in that era.
Phil, who also also worked for the Rochdale Observer Group, the Leicester Mercury, Bury Free Press and Reading Evening News during his carer, is now retired and living in the Vale of Lorton in Cumbria.
He said: “The story and characters are, of course, fictional but the background will resonate with any journalist working in local newspapers in the 1970s, in circumstances very different from today’s newsrooms.
“Press officers were, thankfully, almost non-existent, shorthand at a minimum of 100 wpm – and at least 96 per cent accuracy – was essential and copy had to pass the critical eyes of news editors and sub editors with years of experience before getting anywhere near publication.
“Anyone who has watched, and believed, the vacuous offering currently on television of what working on a local newspaper is like has a shock in store.”
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