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December 2005


Editor’s departure stuns newsroom

THE ANNOUNCEMENT that editor Neil Hodgkinson was to leave the Yorkshire Evening Post caught everyone by surprise – and sparked fears that his departure could threaten the quality of news coverage in Leeds.

The bombshell dropped in December, during a week that saw some of the greatest potential changes to regional newspaper publishing in decades – including the announcement that the Daily Mail and General Trust were putting their Northcliffe titles up for sale and the confirmation of widespread redundancies at Trinity Mirror titles.

Hodgkinson will soon move to Carlisle to edit the independent, family-owned News & Star, its sister papers the Cumberland News, East Cumbrian Gazette and West Cumbrian Gazette and the Eskdale & Liddesdale Advertiser, replacing Keith Sutton who retires this month.

Hodgkinson has been editor of the YEP for nearly seven years, a time when the paper’s reputation for maintaining standards of news coverage had been growing. He had been seen as a bastion against the cost-cutting threatening the quality of many other UK regional titles.

The management website HoldtheFrontPage described the move as a 'big blow' to Leeds.

Extremist challenge
Hodgkinson was not afraid to let the paper campaign forcefully against the British National Party in Yorkshire, at a time when other papers failed to challenge extremist claims so vigourously.

In the days before local, national and European elections over the last three years, the YEP carried page after page of material exposing the criminal, violent and racist backgrounds of many BNP activists and candidates, and the BNP’s agenda of division and hatred.

He took the campaign outside the county, with a hard-hitting presentation of the anti-BNP work at a conference of Johnston Press group editors.

Hodgkinson also ensured positive coverage of other BNP target groups – refugees and asylum seekers – and his editorial policy embraced progressive attitudes towards other issues, including a YEP series illustrating the 'twin track' development of Leeds, with the benefits of the city’s economic boom benefiting an increasingly wealthy minority, while parts of the city continued to endure poverty and parallel social ills.

He was also a founder member of the Leeds Initiative group, campaigning for more Government investment to improve lives in inner-city Leeds.

He authorised the YEP’s editorial sponsorship of the Leeds Together for Peace festival, which motivated thousands to try to improve relationships between city communities.

'Sad and unexpected loss'
Yorkshire Evening Post National Union of Journalists' leader Peter Lazenby, who worked closely with Hodgkinson on some of the YEP’s most progressive projects, including the campaign against the BNP, said: 'Neil’s departure is a sad and unexpected loss to journalism in Leeds. His willingness to take a non-populist stance on issues such as asylum was in stark contrast to the appalling treatment of the issue by sections of the national press and some regional newspapers.

'His departure is also a loss to editorial staff. Neil was an editor with a keen understanding of the pressures and problems faced by journalists. His door was always open, and he was always ready to help if any member of staff had problems. We wish Neil and his family well.'

During Hodgkinson’s editorship, the YEP twice won the Commission for Racial Equality’s Race in the Media award.

Hodginson, 45, said: 'It was a very difficult decision to leave. However, I have been offered a new challenge that was impossible to turn down and I very much look forward to meeting that challenge.@

He is expected to leave in February or March.

Yorkshire Evening Post

National Union of Journalists