WHAT’S the betting that the identity of the new Scotsman newspaper editor will be announced today?
After all, it was exactly a fortnight ago that Les Snowdon was unveiled as the new editor of Scotland on Sunday. And weren’t the departures of Iain Martin, from SoS, and John McGurk, from The Scotsman, also announced on a Friday?
If it is true – as rumours suggest – that ‘headhunters’ were assigned to find the ideal candidate, former Herald editor, Mark Douglas-Home, will have been one of the first names on any long leet, by virtue of being relatively free. Along with current acting editor, Ian Stewart.
Should it not be Stewart, then staff will no doubt be hoping that he isn’t left with the task of announcing the new person. It seemed insensitive that it was Scotland on Sunday acting editor, Tom Little, who was seemingly left with the task of publicly announcing it was not him but Snowdon who had landed the editor’s job.
Scotsman owners, Johnston Press, declined to comment.
Meanwhile, across at the Sunday Herald, Herald and Evening Times, peace appears to have broken out over plans by the company to change the pay day date from the 15th of the month to towards the end of it.
A mass meeting of staff, scheduled for yesterday, was called off after management agreed to discuss with the National Union of Journalists how it might recompense staff who will incur costs by having to change their pesonal direct debit arrangements because of the date change.
It’s not yet clear why the company wanted to change the date in the first place.
