New Indo editor faces huge challenge
Vincent Doyle walks away with at least 6m (or the equivalent in share options) from the editorship of the Irish Independent, having been there 23 years. And few of his colleagues will begrudge him the windfall. He has been one of the towering figures in Irish journalism for a generation, very different from the likes of Douglas Gageby and Conor Brady, former editors of The Irish Times, but nonetheless hugely influential.
Vincent Doyle walks away with at least €6m (or the equivalent in share options) from the editorship of the Irish Independent, having been there 23 years. And few of his colleagues will begrudge him the windfall. He has been one of the towering figures in Irish journalism for a generation, very different from the likes of Douglas Gageby and Conor Brady, former editors of The Irish Times, but nonetheless hugely influential.
During his time he has seen off Tim Pat Coogan, former editor of The Irish Press, and the newspaper itself, with a panache, energy and flair Coogan could never have matched. He has boosted the sales of the Irish Independent at a time when mid-market newspaper sales elsewhere have plummeted. While lacking the austere authority of The Irish Times, it has regularly outperformed that newspaper in its coverage of major stories.
Doyle has been an intuitive editor, not a cerebral one. Not interested in ideas, hugely interested in stories and in "splashes" – the front page spread and double page spreads inside. Throughout the 23 years he has had an uneasy relationship with the controlling shareholder and chairman (now CEO) Tony O'Reilly. Doyle was never one for the frenzied sycophancy that characterises the O'Reilly business and social circle. He avoided, when he could, the parties at O'Reilly's mansion in Castlemartin, Co Kildare. His delights are simpler, a few pints with the lads and a quite meal in an unostentatious restaurant with his wife, Gertie.
A colleague of many years said of him: "If you did something well, Vinnie would reward you. If you got an exclusive, or you wrote a particularly good piece, you'd get a phone call from him or his secretary. He had a good touch like that. He knew how to treat you well if he liked what you were doing. You'd get a cash bonus or extra expenses – something like that.
"But the most important thing for him was the story. He didn't really care how you got it, all that mattered was that you got it before everybody else. It didn't matter about staff – they were all replaceable. The story was what counted. And for some people, that made him hard to work for. He had a short temper and used lots of bad language, and some people found that off-putting. But he was good craic."
His close staff were doggedly loyal, the pints in the Oval and, when that was abandoned as the Indo pub, in other public houses in the vicinity, cemented working relations.
He had started in the old Irish Press, then moved across the river to the Irish Independent where he worked with his predecessor as editor, Aidan Pender. He was editor of the Evening Herald for a few years and took over from Pender in the Irish Independent in 1982. He had all the great gut instincts of a journalist, seeing a story, knowing how to go for it and then knowing how to write it and display it.
The change of editor the Irish Independent is likely to change the Irish Independent. It will be brasher, more tabloid, hostile to liberal/left wing causes, especially Travellers and refugees, probably stronger in sports and maybe even more successful commercially.
Gerry O'Regan, the new editor, was previously editor of The Star and drove its circulation aggressively, doubling its sales in a few years. It often broke stories, took different angles on them, showed a sense of humour and had great sports. He is likely to replicate that in the Irish Independent and likely to do so with his Star associate, Dave O'Connell, now editor of The Westmeath Independent.
He was always the front-runner to take over from Vinnie Doyle, who had been editor for 23 years. Other contenders included Michael Brophy, formerly a formidable journalist with the Irish Independent, now managing director of The Sunday World, Ger Colleran, now editor of The Star, and Michael Wolseley, deputy editor to Vinnie Doyle in the Independent.
It has been the most talked of job in Irish newspapers for a decade. At one time Matt Cooper, now with Today FM, previously editor of The Sunday Tribune and before that a very successful business editor of the Irish Independent, was considered a candidate. Also Jim Farrelly, another former reporter with the Irish Independent, but his chances evaporated by the loss of €8m over 18 months while he was in change of The Sunday Tribune.
O'Regan is very clever, funny, engaging, and professional. "The appointment of Gerry O'Regan as editor of the Evening Herald has to be seen in the context of a huge strategic battle between the Independent group and Associated Newspapers," says Conor Brady, former editor of The Irish Times. "The Independent are clearly terrified of the Associated group arriving on the scene." Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail is soon to launch an Irish edition of the Daily Mail in Ireland, directly targeting the Irish Independent. Ironically, Vinnie Doyle, already regarded the Daily Mail as the great mid-market newspaper and sought to model the Irish Independent on that.
A further challenge comes by way of a free daily newspaper to be distributed in the Dublin region by Associated Newspapers.