closure Indy
no relation to the pornographic differentials you see now. Eventually the paper was sold to Tony O’Reilly’s Irish Independent company and the Mirror Group. The Labour-supporting Mirror was involved in the day-to-day management of The Indy and one of its first decisions was to withdraw recognition from the NUJ.
We had to wait some years for a Labour government to introduce legally binding votes on union recognition. Ahead of the law coming into force, we held an independently scrutinised ballot in which only one journalist opposed NUJ recognition. I’ve got a good idea who that was. But there’s no proof, so I’ll keep that to myself … in public at least. The NUJ has hung on in at the paper. But, while there is an NUJ committee, there is no mother or father of chapel. The union is clearly needed. NUJ national organiser Laura Davison says the information given to staff over the decision to abandon the printed version of The Independent and sell the i to Johnston Press was at its very best late in arriving, at its worst nonexistent.
Independent journalists were forced to read other publications to find out what was going on. Predictably, morale is not high at The Indy and opinions on the proprietor Lebedev are unprintable, even under Independent doctrine. So why did I leave? The paper had become obsessed with what people can buy in shops, meteorological futurology and whales. I wasn’t troubling the printer that much. I got a slight hint I was surplus to requirements one morning when I was in Brighton covering the TUC. I opened the paper and discovered that not a line of my copy had appeared. What made it a touch more embarrassing were The Independent’s placards outside the conference centre, boasting of comprehensive daily coverage.
Timeline
October 1986 The Independent is launched from its offices in City Road, London, with Andreas Whittam Smith as editor. NUJ chapel set up before the first issue January 1990 The Independent on Sunday (IoS) is launched March 1990 The Independent’s
circulation hits 423,000, outstripping that of The Times December 1994 The Independent and IoS move to Canary Wharf, renting space from Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) May 1995 MGN and Tony O’Reilly’s Independent News and Media take a controlling interest in the papers March 1998 O’Reilly wins control of
The Independent September 2003 Tabloid version of The Indy launched alongside the broadsheet May 2004 Broadsheet version dropped. Paper now fully tabloid December 2004 The Independent named newspaper of the year March 2006 A strike is averted by a last-minute pay offer
November 2008 It is announced that both papers are to be relocated at Associated Newspapers’ offices in Kensington by January 2009 to cut costs December 2009 O’Reilly’s company confirms it is in talks with Evening Standard owners Evgeny and Alexander Lebedev March 2010 Lebedevs confirm they are buying The Independent and the IoS for £1.
October 2010 The i newspaper, a shorter version of The Independent, is launched February 2016 Sale of the i newspaper to Johnston Press and the closure of the print version of The Independent announced. March 2016 Final editions of the print version of The Independent and IoS. Online version continues.
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