Lowe's big tease

As his one-time deputy Keith Perch recently noted, Mike Lowe was one of the great 'personality editors' of the 1990s, bringing his unique style of journalism to first the Gloucester Citizen, then the Derby Evening Telegraph, and finally the Bristol Evening Post.

After leaving Bristol following a management shake-up at the paper in 2005, Mike forged a new career as a lifestyle magazine editor, but the recent departures of Paul Horrocks from the Manchester Evening News and Marc Reeves and Steve Dyson from the Birmingham Post and Mail gave Jon Slattery the chance to dust off his contacts book and give him a call for a feature about what happens to ex-editors.

The interview, published in the current print edition of Press Gazette but not available online, is a great read, not least Mike's revelation that he once entertained "3am fantasies of assassinating the man (or woman)" who forced him out of his job.

But the really tantalising gem is the bit where Mike reveals he has recently been approached to return to editing on a major regional title.

He said: "I had a phone call from a headhunter only this week inviting me to apply for a significant regional editor's job. It took me about 20 minutes to realise that I wasn't remotely interested. Life moves on."

So which "significant regional title" was it? Well, the only one I can think of that is currently vacant is the MEN. If Mike, a lifelong United fan, was not tempted by that one, then it's clear that nothing is going to lure him back into regional journalism.

Are the British obsessed with potholes?

Leicester Mercury editor Keith Perch penned an interesting counterblast a week or so back on the subject of potholes and why we in the UK are so "obsessed" with them.

Keith had been holidaying in Italy (lucky beggar) and noticed that while the state of the roads there was markely worse than in Britain, this at least had the effect of making people drive at slower and safer speeds.

"It made me wonder why we are so obsessed with potholes in this country. Every year, the Mercury runs stories about residents complaining about the state of the road where they live, councils run hotlines to allow potholes to be reported and, if memory serves me right, Leicestershire County Council proudly attempts to fix all potholes within 24 hours of them appearing," he wrote.

"But why? What is the real problem with potholes? Wouldn't the cash be better spent elsewhere?"

Keith may like to check out a new satirical blog which has come to our notice entitled Glum Councillors.

It features local newspaper pictures of councillors looking glum while inspecting - you've guessed it - potholes.

Should local papers have led on Jackson's death?

The sight of regional papers splashing on national and international news always generates a fair amount of debate among journalists. For many, who see localness as our unique selling point, following the national news agenda is something that goes against the grain.

I recall an incident on one of my old papers a few years back when a regional political splash got knocked-off the front page by the fall of Saddam Hussein. It was a hugely controversial decision in the newsroom, but the toppling of that bronze statue in Baghdad in 2003 was one of the defining images of the decade, and it was always going to be a hard call to put something else on the front that day.

Over the past few days, the debate has been put into fresh perspective by the regionals' coverage of the death of Michael Jackson. As we reported on HoldtheFrontPage last Friday, many regional dailies made the decision to splash with the late-breaking story in the knowledge that early editions of the nationals alongside them on the news-stands had missed it.

But some HTFP readers were predictably less-than-impressed. One visitor to the site commented tartly: "Has is not occurred to anyone else that Michael Jackson is from Indiana - not Derby, Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester or Dorset."

The best piece I have so far read about this perennial dilemma for regional editors has come from the Leicester Mercury's Keith Perch. This is what he wrote on his blog:

At the Leicester Mercury, we see ourselves as a local newspaper. We report on Leicester and Leicestershire and rarely stray beyond these boundaries other than to put a local angle on to national or international events. But sometimes, things happen that are just so big that it is impossible to ignore them.

Princess Diana's death, the country going to war, 9/11, the London tube bombings, Lockerbie, the Hungerford and Dunblane shootings - these are all examples of things which are not local, but which are so enormous in terms of public conscientiousness and reaction, that I believe a newspaper not leading on them looks odd.

I don't think Michael Jackson's death comes quite into the same category despite the level of reaction, but, nevertheless, we took the decision late on Thursday evening to lead the paper on the night's events. Why was that? It was at least in part because it happened so late that I thought that it might miss the early editions of the national newspapers, but it was also because I felt that it was a big enough story to mean that it would be the only thing people were talking about the next day.

Was that the right decision? I don't know. Many other regional papers disagreed and didn't change up and it's too early to see what effect it had on our sales figures. However, I would say that when I saw the bills in the streets later in the day, I felt the decision was right.

I think Keith puts his finger on the issue here when he says that not leading on stories as big as the death of Jackson "looks odd." No doubt my old boss felt the same about the fall of Saddam.

Yes, localness is the USP of the regional press - but in this global village we now inhabit, there are times when international = local and local = parochial.