Camden New Journal: Difference between revisions

| website = {{urlURL|http://www.camdennewjournal.com}}

It is frequently critical of local and national government, which has led to attacks by national government ministers, as well as local councillors, unusually for a local paper. On being awarded its second ''[[Press Gazette|]]''Press Gazette'']] Free Newspaper of the Year award in 2005, the judges praised how the paper kept its "[[Camden London Borough Council|huge local council]] on its toes with exclusive after exclusive".<ref name=pressgazette/>

The ''Camden New Journal'' has its origins in 1872, when the ''Holloway Press'' began. In 1875, the newspaper was renamed the ''North Metropolitan and Holloway Press'' before becoming the ''Holloway Press'' in 1880, the ''Islington & Holloway Press'' in 1923, and the ''North London Press'' from 1942.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |title=Islington: Social and cultural activities {{!}} British History Online |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol8/pp45-51 |access-date=2023-02-02 |website=www.british-history.ac.uk}}</ref>

From 1964, separate editions of the ''North London Press'' were published for [[Islington London Borough Councilof Islington|Islington]] and [[Camden London Borough Councilof Camden|Camden]], before the publications separated in February 1971 to form the ''Holloway & Islington Journal'' and the ''Camden Journal'', the former being discontinued in 1974.<ref name=":4" />

The ''Camden Journal'' continued until the 1980s when Eric Gordon bought the newspaper from ''Courier Press'' for £1 following a 16 -month strike that started when nine journalists were dismissed in December 1980 upon the closure of the original ''Camden Journal''.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Tobitt |first=Charlotte |date=2021-04-12 |title=Camden New Journal's 'benevolent dictator' Eric Gordon leaves 'small is beautiful' legacy after death at 89 |url=https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/camden-new-journal-eric-gordon-death-legacy/ |access-date=2023-01-31 |website=Press Gazette |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=adwoakorkoh |date=2022-03-27 |title='Like a minnow among the sharks' |url=https://angelacobbinah.wordpress.com/2022/03/27/like-a-minnow-among-the-sharks/ |access-date=2023-02-03 |language=en}}</ref> Camden Labour backed the journalists and on 3 January 1981 they helped distribute the first edition of ''Save the Journal''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Books: Former Labour councillor Bob Latham's response to Piers Wauchope's book Camden: A Political History {{!}} Camden Review (beta) |url=http://www.thecnj.com/camden_review/reviews/books/2010/apr/books-former-labour-councillor-bob-lathams-response-piers-wauchopes-book-camd |access-date=2023-02-03 |website=www.thecnj.com}}</ref> A campaign was launched that was backed by journalists at the ''Hornsey Journal'' and ''Islington Gazette'' and [[National Union of Journalists|NUJ]] members in [[Nuneaton]], [[Leamington Spa]], [[Rugby, Warwickshire|Rugby]], [[Haverfordwest]], [[Ammanford]] and London's suburban papers.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=Eric Gordon: He refused to look the other way on issues of racism and inequality |url=https://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/eric-gordon-he-refused-to-look-the-other-way-on-issues-of-racism-and-inequality?sp=-5 |access-date=2023-02-03 |website=Camden New Journal |language=en-gb}}</ref> The campaign succeeded, with the publication wasbeing turned into a free newspaper and was re-launched as the ''Camden New Journal'' on 25 March 1982.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |url=https://www.thejc.com/news/news/eric-gordon-1.520517?reloadTime=1675194772482 |access-date=2023-01-31 |website=www.thejc.com |title=Eric Gordon }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=CNJ at 40: The New Journal forged ahead like a minnow among the sharks |url=https://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/cnj-at-40-the-new-journal-forged-ahead-like-a-minnow-among-the-sharks |access-date=2023-01-31 |website=Camden New Journal |language=en-gb}}</ref>

As of 2021, the ''Camden New Journal'' has a distribution of 50,000, which includes door-to-door deliveries and pick-up bins around the borough of Camden.<ref name=":1" /> The newspaper reaches one in every two people in the borough and there is also an e-reader edition.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Camden New Journal |url=https://www.thepressawards.com/finalists/camden-new-journal-r0028 |access-date=2023-02-03 |website=The Press Awards |language=en}}</ref>

The ''Camden New Journal'' was launched by Eric Ephraim Gordon in March 1982. Gordon was born on 28 May 1931 and grew up in [[Wythenshawe]], [[Greater Manchester]], where his parents, Samuel and Sarah Gordon, ran a newspaper shop.<ref name=":2" /> He had a brother, Jeffrey, and sister, Anita. Gordon's grandparents, Philip (a tailor) and Leah Gordon, emigrated to the United Kingdom in the 1880s from [[Eastern Europe]]. Gordon, who was [[Jews|Jewish]], subsequently moved to [[Cheetham, Manchester|Cheetham]], north Manchester where he attended a secular school before being offered a place at [[Gateshead Talmudical College|Gateshead Yeshivah]].<ref name=":2" /> He then moved to a [[Yeshiva|Talmudic college]] in [[Stamford Hill]], London,; however, he ran away after two years.<ref name=":2" /> On Gordon's eighteenth birthday, he joined the [[Young Communist League (Great Britain)|Young Communist League]], after being persuaded by his [[Communism|communist]] brother to reject institutionalised Judaism.<ref name=":2" />

Gordon learnt shorthand and typing in his ambition to become ana journalist. After spending three years of [[National service|National Service]] in the [[pathology]] labs of the Royal Medical Corps, he worked on a series of local newspapers, including the ''Brighton Evening Argus'' and the ''Daily Herald''.<ref name=":2" /> Gordon married Marie (née Biney) in 1955 and the couple had a son, Kim, in 1965, and daughter, Leigh, in 1970.<ref name=":2" />

In February 1965, Gordon took his wife and son to [[Beijing]] to work in the Chinese government’sgovernment's foreign-language publishing house. By 1967, Gordon had been accused of spying in and spent two years under house arrest. The Chinese authorities found notes about the [[Cultural Revolution]], on which he planned to write a book, while Gordon was working in a commune.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Sharman |first=David |title=Camden New Journal editor Eric Gordon dies aged 89 - Journalism News from HoldtheFrontPage |url=https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2021/news/serving-editor-who-was-still-working-for-weekly-he-founded-dies-aged-89/ |access-date=2023-01-31 |website=HoldtheFrontPage |language=en-GB}}</ref> In 1969, following surgery for cancer, he negotiated a cleverly worded 'confession', admitting to being [[anti-Marxist]] and bourgeois, but not a spy.<ref name=":2" /> After Gordon's release, he wrote a book, ''Freedom Is a Word''.<ref name=":2" />

Gordon's second marriage was to Samantha (née Harding), with whom he had a second daughter, Elly. Gordon lived in [[Primrose Hill]] and died on 5 April 2021, aged 89, after a short illness.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Eric Gordon: Tributes to Camden’sCamden's great chronicler as founder and editor of CNJ dies at 89 |url=https://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/eric-gordon-tributes-to-camdens-great-chronicler-as-founder-and-editor-of-cnj-dies-at-89 |access-date=2023-01-31 |website=Camden New Journal |language=en-gb}}</ref> He was the ''Camden New Journal''<nowiki/>{{'s}} founding and only editor, celebrating the 2000th issue in 2020, and continued to work on the publication until his death.<ref name=":1" /> The ''Camden New Journal''<nowiki/>{{'s}} deputy editor, Richard Osley, wrote, "As editor of one of the last independent titles in the UK, he was proud of the newspaper’snewspaper's freedom from large groups and championed a co-op style structure, warning that papers would struggle to survive if they had to answer to faraway group executives or distant shareholders seeking dividends each year."<ref name=":3" />

Before Gordon's death, he set out a vision to set up a new management structure for the newspaper. He proposed the idea of an outside body of trustees to represent the community and to ensure the newspaper followed, as faithfully as possible, the aims and principles that led to its birth in 1982. Following Gordon's death, the intention is to ensure the newspaper can not be bought by one person who could change its focus towards making a profit; true to Gordon’sGordon's original aim of only covering the costs to allow for the publication of a "campaigning, open-to-all newspaper".<ref name=":1" />

The ''Camden New Journal'', ''[[Islington Tribune]]'', ''[[Westminster Extra]]'', and ''The Review'' are all publications of New Journal Enterprises.<ref name=":8">{{cite web |url=http://www.thecnj.com/rate_card/03ratecardoverviewIT.html |title=Publications by New Journal Enterprises |website=Camden New Journal|access-date= 29 July 2018}}</ref>

The ''Islington Tribune'', launched in 2003, is a widely-read local newspaper in the [[London Borough of Islington]], contributed to by Koos Couvée and Joe Cooper.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |first=Charlotte |last=Tobitt |date=2021-04-12 |title=Future of Camden New Journal after death of Eric Gordon |url=https://pressgazette.co.uk/camden-new-journal-eric-gordon-death-legacy/ |access-date=2022-06-06 |website=Press Gazette |language=en-US}}</ref> Former reporters include Joel Taylor, Kim Janssen and Andrew Walker, who works for the [[BBC]], as well as former ''Camden New Journal'' deputy editor Andrew Johnson. Peter Gruner, an award-winning environment journalist who previously worked for the ''[[Evening Standard]]'', worked for the title until 2015.

[[Category:PublicationsNewspapers established in 1982]]