Medway News

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**Editors of the Medway News**
1855	Henry Clayton
c 1855	Joseph Foster
1885	George Neves
1921	C P Wootton
1923	H J Ross
1927	Harry Couchman
1950	Eddie Albon
1959	Graham Parrett
1968	Eric Wintle
1972	Gerald Hinks
1992	Jon McElhill
1995	Murray Evans
2001	Diane Nicholls

Established in 1855 as the Military Chronicle and Naval Spectator and for most of its life the Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham News, the Medway News is a weekly newspaper covering the Medway Towns in Kent, England. It is published from offices in New Road Avenue, Chatham, and is one of a series of newspapers that includes the Medway Standard and the free Medway Adscene.

The Medway News is published on a Friday, the Medway Standard on Tuesday and Adscene on Wednesday. The titles were known as Chatham News (or “Roch-Chat-Gill”) and Chatham Standard, respectively, until the mid 1990s. The Medway News features general news, a leisure section, a film review, comment, village news and sport. The Medway Standard specialises in sports news, particularly coverage of Gillingham Football Club, comes with a supplement called The Guide that contains a leisure section, fashion and music pages, and an extended film review. Until late 2006, it featured a local history page called Memories, written by Stephen Rayner.

Previous reporters at the newspaper include Martin Brunt, now crime correspondent for Sky News, Peter Salmon, later a controller of BBC One, Harry Arnold, a royal reporter at The Sun, and John Williams, political editor at The Daily Mirror. The editor since 2001 is Diane Nicholls and the news editor is Nicola Jordan.

The Medway News is part of Kent Regional Newspapers group, owned by Trinity Mirror. Other titles in Kent Regional Newspapers include the East Kent Gazette, the Whitstable Times, Herne Bay Times, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Thanet Times, Folkestone Herald, Dover Express and a series of free Adscene newspapers covering areas including Canterbury, Ashford and Maidstone.

1 History
2 The News office
3 External links
4 Sources

[edit] History

The first editor-proprietor of the News was Henry Clayton, a local bookseller, who soon discovered he needed a journalist, and brought in Joseph Foster from The Spectator.

Foster eventually became sole proprietor. When he died in 1885 his heirs sold to Parrett & Neves, publishers of the East Kent Gazette at Sittingbourne, George Neves becoming editor. He died in 1921.

Neves was succeeded C P Wootton, H J Ross, Harry Couchman, and Eddie Albon. In 1959, Graham Parrett — great grandson of W J Parrett, whose company bought the News in 1885 — became editor and stayed in that role until 1968 when he became managing director of Parrett & Neves' publishing company, Associated Kent Newspapers. His deputy Eric Wintle was promoted to editor and stayed in that role briefly (he later became the company’s editorial director) before Gerald Hinks took the editor’s chair in 1970. Hinks, a former editor of the Sheerness Times Guardian and East Kent Gazette, took the News and its sister paper the Chatham Standard through an era of great success and won many national newspaper awards. His editorship, characterised by a string of exclusive stories and robust journalism, was marred by the closure of Chatham Dockyard in 1984, an event that caused severe depression to the Medway towns’ fortunes and the circulation of the News.

In 1988 Parrett & Neves sold Associated Kent Newspapers to Emap. During this ownership, Hinks was replaced by John McElhill, formerly of the Mid-Sussex Times. The circulation dipped further. The group was subsequently sold to its hated rivals, the Canterbury-based freesheet publishing group Adscene. McElhill resigned and was succeeded by Murray Evans, a former deputy editor of the News and editor of the East Kent Gazette. Evans was succeeded in 2001 by his deputy, Diane Nicholls. The publishing group went through two more owners, Denitz and Southnews, before being bought by Trinity Mirror. Trinity announced in December 2006 that it was selling its southern division, including the News.

[edit] The News office

The News was initially published from and printed from 30 High Street, Chatham. In the late 1960s, after production was centralised at Crown Quay Lane, Sittingbourne, the building was sold to the BBC, from which BBC Radio Medway was launched in 1970. The News moved to a nearby building at 12 New Road Avenue, Chatham. A Gillingham branch office shut in the mid 1980s.