The editors of the Daily Express and Daily Star have resigned days after the publisher of the Mirror completed its £200m takeover of Richard Desmond’s national newspapers.
The Daily Star editor, Dawn Neesom, the longest-serving female national newspaper editor, and her counterpart, Hugh Whittow, who has edited the Daily Express since 2011, have announced they are leaving.
“After 15 years as editor of this brilliant newspaper I’m out of here as of tonight,” said Neesom, in an email to staff on Wednesday night. “I’ve been the longest-serving editor of the Daily Star [and] the longest-serving female national newspaper editor. It’s been an incredible experience, but it really is the time to move on to new challenges.”
Whittow, who has worked at Express Newspapers for decades, is understood to be announcing his departure on Thursday.
The resignations come days after investors in Trinity Mirror, the parent company of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, voted to approve the £200m takeover of the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star, Daily Star Sunday and OK! magazine.
The departures will concern the approximately 900 Express Newspaper staff – of whom about 350 are editorial – who have been told by the chief executive of their new owner that they will remain editorially independent.
“The Mirror is not going to go rightwing and the Express is not going to go leftwing,” Simon Fox told the Guardian this month. “They will absolutely all have editorial independence.”
Fox is expected to address staff at 10.30am on Thursday.
Lloyd Embley, the editor-in-chief of the Mirror titles, is expected to assume editorial oversight of the five national newspaper titles. Alison Phillips, the former editor of Trinity Mirror’s shortlived national newspaper, New Day, has been the subject of rumours that she could be a future editor of the Express. She is currently deputy editor of the Mirror titles.
Fox has said there will be some pooling of editorial resources, such as creating a sports department to provide content to all titles, but that areas such as politics will remain separate. However, Trinity Mirror wants to make £20m in annual savings, with £9.3m from “content generation”. This will mean job cuts.
Trinity Mirror is understood to have hired Mark Hollinshead, a Trinity Mirror veteran who rose to second-in-command and left when Fox was appointed chief executive, to run Express Newspapers for an interim period before the full merger.
The Competition and Markets Authority is expected to announce that it intends to investigate the takeover, which could raise issues of competition and market share, this week.
The CMA could issue an order that the two businesses operate as standalone entities for an extended period of time before allowing the takeover to happen.
Trinity Mirror is expected to formally announce completion of the takeover deal to the stock market on Thursday.
