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Tributes and vigils mark the loss of Lyra McKee


TRIBUTES HAVE poured in from around the world for Lyra McKee, the Northern Irish journalist and NUJ member who was killed by a dissident Republican gunman while she was covering a riot in Derry just before Easter. Vigils were held by journalists in Ireland, the UK and in other countries for Lyra who was 29 and was seen by many as one of the rising stars of investigative journalism. She had a two-book commission with Faber with The Lost Boys, an investigation into children and young men who disappeared during the Troubles, due out next year. She had been named by Forbes as one of 30 European journalists aged under 30 to watch and she had given a prestigious Ted talk. The New IRA, the small dissident group


which continues to use violence, apologised for Lyra’s death which happened in the staunchly republican area of the Creggan in Derry. Lyra died the night before Good Friday and was due to speak at a World Press Freedom event in early May. Lyra’s funeral in Belfast, her home city, was


attended by the Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Irish President Michael D Higgins, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley, leader of the Labour


Party Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party Arlene Foster, and leader of Sinn Fein Mary Lou MacDonald. Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary and Seamus Dooley, NUJ Irish secretary, also attended the service which was led by clergy from the Catholic and Protestant churches. The NUJ held a guard of honour for Lyra’s


coffin to go into St Anne’s Cathedral. Lyra is survived by her partner Sara Canning; her mother Joan and five siblings Gary, Joan, Nichola, David and Mary. Her family has set up a fundraising page in her memory: https://www.gofundme.com/in-memory-of- lyra-mckee/donate


Funeral and vigil photographs, Page 7 Viewpoint, Page 9 Obituary, Page 23


Bid for recognition at Vice UK


NUJ MEMBERS at Vice UK, the online news and features service, have written to the company seeking union recognition. The union said it welcomed the


growth in NUJ membership at the company and was supporting the chapel in organising talks to gain


recognition, which would give the journalists the right to negotiate pay and other conditions with the management. The Vice chapel said: “After


several months of organising, we – the editorial, production, and post-production staff of Vice UK


– are proud to have built a strong and active Vice UK union chapel. With majority support in all three departments, and strong NUJ membership, we have decided again to petition Vice UK management for formal union recognition.”


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JPI MEDIA, which owns the i and the Scotsman and many other regional titles, is planning to cut up to 70 full-time editorial roles across the UK. It is thought that the i, the only national title


in the stable, will be exempt from the cuts. Sixty of the proposed redundancies will fall


across JPI Media’s 170 regional titles, which include dailies the Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post, Sunderland Echo, Belfast


The NUJ held a guard of honour for Lyra’s coffin to go into St Anne’s Cathedral.


inbrief...


IPSO RULES AGAINST BORIS JOHNSON The press regulator IPSO ruled that Boris Johnson breached accuracy guidelines in his Daily Telegraph column when he claimed a no-deal Brexit was the preferred option for leaving the EU ‘by some margin’. The column was published on January 7 and was trailed on the front page.


ITN EXPECTS STABLE NEWS REVENUES ITN’s broadcast news revenues increased slightly to £88.9 million in 2018, up from £87.8 million the year before. The company, which makes the ITV News, Channel 4 News and 5 News programmes, said its news revenue is expected to remain consistent in 2019.


PAXMAN WRITES FOR SAGA MAGAZINE The former Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman has been made a columnist at the over-50s magazine Saga.The title is being relaunched by editor Louise Robinson who took over in February. She edited the Sunday Express supplement S Magazine for more than 13 years until 2015,


HERALD SCALES DOWN TO TABLOID The Herald weekly series in Surrey and Hampshire has switched from broadsheet to tabloid after 127 years in print. The price of the Tindle-owned titles has also risen from 60p to 80p, in what the publisher said was only its second price increase in 10 years.


More cuts at JPI Media newspapers


Newsletter, and The News in Portsmouth. Ten more jobs are at risk across Scotsman titles which include the Scotsman, the Edinburgh Evening News and Scotland on Sunday. The cuts follow another round of 20


redundancies in community reporting at the publisher earlier this year. Those reductions were made as JPI Media took on 19 community reporters as part of a scheme operated by Facebook.


NUJ ACTIVIST MONICA FOOT DIES Monica Foot died peacefully in Bristol on April 26. She was 80. Her funeral will be held at Golders Green Crematorium on Sunday May 26 - 10.50 for 11am start. All welcome. Monica was a print and TV journalist and worked as press officer for Labour and Equity and was a long-standing member of the NUJ executive council. She was a lifelong member of the NUJ.


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BRYAN MEADE


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