Medway News - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

style="font-size: larger;" | **Editors of the News**
1859	Joseph Clayton
1859	Henry Foster
1885	George Neves
1921	C P Wootton
1923	H J Ross
1927	Harry Couchman
1950	Eddie Albon
1959	Graham Parrett
1968	Eric Wintle
1970	Gerald Hinks
1993	Jon McElhill
1995	Murray Evans
2001	Diane Nicholls
2008	Christine Rayner

The Medway News is a weekly newspaper covering the Medway Towns in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Established in 1855 as the Military Chronicle and Naval Spectator, it relaunched as the Chatham News and Rochester, Strood, Brompton & Gillingham Advertiser on Saturday 9 July, 1859. The first issue cost 1d.

The newspaper has been known as the Chatham News, the Medway News and just the News but held the the title Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham News (often known as the Roch-Chat-Gill) for the longest period.

Until late 2008 it was published from offices in New Road Avenue, Chatham

Chatham, Medway

Chatham is one of the Medway towns located within the Medway unitary authority, in North Kent, in South East England.Although the dockyard has long been closed and is now being redeveloped into a business and residential community as well as a museum featuring the famous submarine, HMS Ocelot,...

, and was one of a series of newspapers that included the Medway Standard and the free Medway Adscene. However, the Standard ceased publication in early 2009 when the Adscene title was absorbed into the News, "Medway" was dropped from the titlepiece and the publication day was shifted from Friday to Thursday.

The newspaper's offices have been moved from the centre of Medway to Gillingham Business Park and are shared with the News's sister paper, the East Kent Gazette, which had been based on the same site in Sittingbourne since its foundation on 21 July 1855. Both titles are now edited by Christine Rayner, editor of the East Kent Gazette since 1995.

The News features general news, a leisure section, a business page, a film review, comment, village news and sport. The Medway Standard, specialised in sports news, particularly coverage of Gillingham Football Club.

Previous reporters at the newspaper include Martin Brunt

Martin Brunt

Martin Edward Brunt is crime correspondent for Sky News who joined the channel for its launch in 1989.-Education:...

, now crime correspondent for Sky News

Sky News

Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...

, Peter Salmon, later controller of BBC One

BBC One

BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

, Robert Tyrer, now associate editor of The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

, and John Williams, a political editor at The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper which was founded in 1903. Twice in its history, from 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was changed to read simply The Mirror, which is how the paper is often referred to in popular parlance. It had an...

and the London Evening Standard, and author of a draft of the September Dossier

September Dossier

Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, also known as the September Dossier, was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to discuss the contents of the document...

for war in Iraq. Until late 2006, the News featured a Memories http://www.medwaymemories.co.uk/ page, written by Stephen Rayner, a former reporter and assistant editor on the News who now works for The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

.

The editor is Christine Rayner and the news editor is Nicola Jordan.

The News is part of Kent Regional News and Media, owned since July 2007 by Northcliffe Media

Northcliffe Media

Northcliffe Media Ltd. is a large regional newspaper publisher in the UK and Central and Eastern Europe, owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. The company's name was changed to Northcliffe Media from Northcliffe Newspaper Group in 2007.It operates from over 30 publishing centres, and also...

. Other titles in KRN&M include the East Kent Gazette, the Whitstable Times, Herne Bay Times, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Thanet Times, Folkestone Herald and Dover Express.

The paper closed on the last day of November 2011. The owners decided to close the paper just a fortnight after the failed merger with the KM Group, which would have seen the KRN titles tranferred to their rivals.

History

The first editor-proprietor of the News was Joseph Clayton, a bookseller, who soon discovered he needed a journalist, and brought in Henry Foster from The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

.

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

Sittingbourne

Sittingbourne is an industrial town about eight miles east of Gillingham in England, beside the Roman Watling Street off a creek in the Swale, a channel separating the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent...

, 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 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
Sheerness Times Guardian
The Sheerness Times Guardian is a weekly newspaper serving the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. It is owned by the KM Group and is published on Thursdays.-History:...

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

Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard, located on the River Medway and of which two-thirds is in Gillingham and one third in Chatham, Kent, England, came into existence at the time when, following the Reformation, relations with the Catholic countries of Europe had worsened, leading to a requirement for additional...

in 1984, an event that caused huge social change, severe depression to the Medway towns’ fortunes, and a drop in the circulation of the News. Staff during this time include Michael Pearce, later editor of the Isle of Thanet Gazette and Thanet Times, Frank Dunkley, Jimmy Hodge, Ted Connolly and Christine Rayner

Christine Rayner

-Selected filmography:* Sally Bishop * The Kinsman * Kipps * Comin' Thro the Rye...

, since 1995 editor of the East Kent Gazette series and editor of the News since 2008.

In 1988 Parrett & Neves sold Associated Kent Newspapers to Emap

EMAP

Emap Limited is a British media company, specialising in the production of business-to-business magazines, and the organisation of business events and conferences...

. During this ownership, Hinks was replaced by Jon 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 and she in turn by Christine Rayner. The publishing group went through three more owners, Denitz and Southnews and Trinity Mirror

Trinity Mirror

Trinity Mirror plc is a large British newspaper and magazine publisher. It is Britain's biggest newspaper group, publishing 240 regional papers as well as the national Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People, and the Scottish Sunday Mail and Daily Record. Its headquarters are at Canary Wharf in...

. Northcliffe Media

Northcliffe Media

bought Trinity's Kent titles, including the News, in July 2007.

The News office

The News was initially published and printed at 30 High Street, Chatham. In the late 1960s, after printing and production was centralised at Crown Quay Lane, Sittingbourne

Sittingbourne

, the building was sold to the BBC, from which BBC Radio Medway was launched in 1970. (More recently the building was converted into flats, and named Media House in view of its previous uses.) The News moved to a nearby building at 12 New Road Avenue, Chatham. A Rochester branch office, in the High Street near the Cathedral Green, closed in the early 1960s; the Gillingham branch office shut two decades later.

In summer 2008 it was announced the New Road Avenue office would shut and the News would move to Gillingham Business park, sharing an office with its older sister paper, the East Kent Gazette.

External links

Sources

Company records of Parrett & Neves
Kelly's Directory of Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and Strood

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