Enquirer inquiry
Interesting news about a new regional newspaper coming out of Manchester. The weekly North West Enquirer has announced the core members of its editorial team, including former Yorkshire Post editor Rachael Campey (sacked after a no-confidence vote by the journos working under her); and Bill Hall, previously the FT's man in the north. The Press Gazette first announced the launch back in December.
It's being published by Nick Jaspan and Bob Waterhouse, who I know back from the Newsco Insider days, and backed by the North West Equity Fund (one of the government-backed regional VC funds, about which I've written at length).
Jaspan and Waterhouse sold Newsco to RIM in late 1999. After RIM's acquisition by Johnson, the company floated in limbo for a while before completing its own MBO last year. As far as I know, they've not had much to do with it since. It seems a little odd then to find, while looking for more info on this brave new venture, that all the URLs that one might expect the new venture to occupy - nwenquirer.com, northwestenquirer.co.uk, etc - all seem to have been registered in February, a few days after the funding announcement, by Newsco Insider, and lead to a standard Insider Media Ltd page notable for its lack of reference to the new publication. It's possible, of course, that Insider is managing the Enquirer's online presence, though online operations have never been the strong point of the group. But it does rather suggest some skullduggery - a little opportunistic cyber-squatting on Insider's part, stemming from the fundamental error by the new business of not registering its URLs as soon as possible? If anyone involved would like to clarify the situation, I'd be fascinated to hear from them.
It's being published by Nick Jaspan and Bob Waterhouse, who I know back from the Newsco Insider days, and backed by the North West Equity Fund (one of the government-backed regional VC funds, about which I've written at length).
Jaspan and Waterhouse sold Newsco to RIM in late 1999. After RIM's acquisition by Johnson, the company floated in limbo for a while before completing its own MBO last year. As far as I know, they've not had much to do with it since. It seems a little odd then to find, while looking for more info on this brave new venture, that all the URLs that one might expect the new venture to occupy - nwenquirer.com, northwestenquirer.co.uk, etc - all seem to have been registered in February, a few days after the funding announcement, by Newsco Insider, and lead to a standard Insider Media Ltd page notable for its lack of reference to the new publication. It's possible, of course, that Insider is managing the Enquirer's online presence, though online operations have never been the strong point of the group. But it does rather suggest some skullduggery - a little opportunistic cyber-squatting on Insider's part, stemming from the fundamental error by the new business of not registering its URLs as soon as possible? If anyone involved would like to clarify the situation, I'd be fascinated to hear from them.
Labels: journalism
posted by Tim Chapman at 1:11 pm
1 Comments:
Newsco's actions have been described as those of puerile teenagers. It's meaningless and will backfire on them.
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