When it comes to the Murdoch family and media, they’ve got their fingers
in just about every pie going. Not content with running BSkyB in the UK,
Rupert’s daughter Elisabeth Murdoch Pianim and her husband have invested
in the UK’s latest black tabloid newspaper - New Nation. It’s aiming for
a circulation of 30,000 and hopes to provide a quality alternative to
the Voice where papers like the Weekly Journal have fallen by the
wayside.
Its editor is Richard Adeshiyan, who has worked for most of the UK’s
black press. He acknowledges that it’s going to be a struggle to take on
the Voice, which has built up a huge and loyal base of readers and
advertisers over the last 14 years. But Adeshiyan has always been one
for a bit of a struggle. All his heroes have pulled themselves up in
classic rags to riches style and, as a former triple jumper himself,
competition holds no terror.
‘I started triple jumping while I was at school and I found it really
easy until I started competing at higher levels,’ he explains. ‘That’s
when I found guys beating me really easily. I decided to join the
Haringey Club where some of the country’s international athletes train
and they taught me the basics of jumping properly. I learned a lot from
that and I think it’s true in journalism in the same way. You have to
learn all the basics before you can be any good.’
It was through his athletics background that Adeshiyan got into
journalism. He’d been training with the likes of Linford Christie, Daley
Thompson and Tessa Sanderson and freelancing the odd piece for the
athletics trade titles when he walked into the Voice’s offices and
basically offered to be a tea boy if they’d let him get started on a few
athletics features. The then editor, Sharon Ali, was so impressed by his
contacts that she made him sports reporter almost on the spot.
‘It was fantastic experience for a young black journalist because I was
travelling the world, going to all these after-meet parties, mixing with
the Fleet Street old hands and, through my contacts, raising the profile
of the Voice,’ he says. ‘I was able to ply my trade in the mainstream
media as well and learn all about journalism from writing to page layout
and design.’
He rose to deputy editor and entertainment editor of the Voice and
achieved one of his ambitions in interviewing Art Blakey backstage at
Ronnie Scott’s. He then moved to the new rival to the Voice, the Weekly
Journal, as managing editor, also working on the international section
so that he could keep writing.
It was there that he had his greatest professional experience - he was
one of the few black British journalists to cover the first all-race
South African elections. He spent election day in Soweto and came back a
changed man. ‘There were so many black journalists in the UK who wished
they had the chance to do that job,’ he says. ‘I’m so glad I don’t have
to go through life saying ‘I wish I was there’.’
HIGHLIGHTS
1989 Assistant editor, features, the Voice
1990 Deputy editor, the Voice
1992 Managing editor and head of international news, the Weekly Journal
1995 Editor, the Weekly Journal
1996 Researcher, Black Britain
1996 Editor, New Nation
