Ian Murray began his journalist career in 1979 joining Berrows Newspapers in the West Midlands as a direct trainee aged 19. After successfully completing journalist training at Sheffield College, he was a senior reporter at the Stourbridge County Express and went on to become editor of the Kidderminster Shuttle and Times when at the age of 24 he was the youngest editor in England. After a short spell at the Daily News in Birmingham, Ian joined the newsdesk of the Daily Echo, Bournemouth in 1988, rising through the roles of News Editor and Deputy Editor to become Managing Editor of the paper in 1996. In 1998 he was appointed Editor of the Southern Daily Echo, the Southampton Advertiser Series and New Forest Post, and was later appointed Editor in Chief for all of Newsquest’s publications in Hampshire.
A past president of the Newspaper Society’s Young Newspaper Managers’ Association, Ian is also a past president of the Wessex Branch of the Guild of Editors. He is currently a member of the Editors’ Advisory Committee to the Press Complaints Commission.
Ian is 51, married with two teenage daughters - The Miss Ms - who feature along with the long-suffering Mrs M in his weekly column of a wry look at local life from Murray Towers.
Newsquest is Britian’s second largest regional publisher and controls some 17 daily newspapers including the Brighton Argus, Oxford Mail, Northern Echo and Glasgow Herald, and over 300 weekly papers. Newsquest is part of Gannett based in the US whose flagship publication in USA Today.
