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Former Swindon Advertiser editor likens job to toilet paper in blog post

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

June 29, 2011 | 3 min read

One wonders how many Scottish senior journalists this morning feel some sympathy for the views of an English regional daily editor who stepped down from his role last month - likening his job to toilet paper and referring to his staff as the Addams family in a blog post.

Media website, Holdthefrontpage, reports that former Swindon Advertiser editor Dave King, in a blog post, said he spent most of the time “dealing with other people’s crap” during his time in the role.

The website says that King stepped down last month to spend time with his family following the announcement of five redundancies at the Newsquest title.

King wrote his blog entitled Passing Shots: Ramblings of a Wizened Journalist, following a bus journey he took in his hometown of Bournemouth, which, he said , made him reflect on how he no longer missed those ‘toilet roll moments.’

Dave wrote: “A few weeks ago, I was working as the busy editor of a regional daily paper – at my desk at sparrowfart a good couple of hours before the rest of the staff - and not leaving the office until nigh on 12 hours later, with sometimes the prospect of an evening function or meeting to come.

“I was responsible for a team of journalists, an incredible Addams Family set of characters, as my day often depended on their whims and moods, or what issues popped up in my emails.”

He says that during one management training sessions he was once asked to draw his job, so sketched a toilet roll.

“I explained to colleagues that my job every day was not a creative journalist, but instead it was determined by dealing with other people’s crap,” wrote King.

He went on to say that he had stepped off the incessant media merry-go-round after 30 years and it felt good.

“I had no-one asking me to do their thinking for them, no phones ringing, no Microsoft Outlook heralding the arrival of the latest piece of cyber dross to be dumped in my email basket.

“No, the only decision I had to make was what stops to get off as the bus drew closer to Bournemouth town centre.”

King, a former deputy editor of the Southern Daily Echo in Southampton, left the Swindon Advertiser earlier this month after four years as editor.

He was replaced in the role by Gary Lawrence, formerly editor of Newsquest Wiltshire’s weekly titles.

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