Brian Hitchen,

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(8 July 1936 – 2 December 2013) was a British

newspaper editor An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

. Late in his career, he worked as a publisher.Obituary: Brian Hitchen
telegraph.co.uk, 3 December 2013 Hitchen began his career with the ''Daily Despatch'' in Manchester as a copyboy, and then joined the ''Bury Times'' as a trainee reporter a year later. His

national service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

followed in which he served in the Parachute Regiment during 1954–56.

Dennis Griffiths Dennis Griffiths (8 December 1933 – 24 December 2015) was a British journalist and historian, regarded as the founding father of newspaper history from the earliest days of Fleet Street. His ''Encyclopedia of the British Press 1422–1992'' has ...

(ed) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p.311 After national service, following a year on the ''

Manchester Evening News The ''Manchester Evening News'' (''MEN'') is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in North West England, founded in 1868. It is published Monday–Saturday; a Sunday edition, the ''MEN on Sunday'', was launched in February 20 ...

'', he began his national newspaper career when he joined the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print c ...

'' in their

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

office. In 1963 he became their foreign correspondent in Paris, and then from 1965 to 1972, he reported from all over the world for the ''Mirror''. In 1965 he was sent to cover the 1965 India-Pakistan War. Whilst working for the ''Daily Mirror''s

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

bureau he reported on the 1968 Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and on the May 1970 Bogota Bracelet scandal involving

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

's captain, Bobby Moore, before the 1970 World Cup. Hitchen returned to London on the news desk for the ''Daily Mirror'' in 1972, later joining the '' Daily Express'' in the same post where he remained between 1973 and 1978. Hitchen edited the '' Daily Star'' from 1987 to 1994, when he became the editor of the '' Sunday Express'' for a year.Roy Greenslade In 1996, he set up Brian Hitchen Communications and also became chairman of the ''Kerry Life'' and Irish ''Country Life'' publications."Inside Story: The ex-editors' files"
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'', 9 May 2005 In 2013, an incident with a car while crossing the road near

Alicante Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...

, Spain, led to Hitchen's wife being killed instantly, while Hitchen himself died from his injuries a few hours later. Hitchen was appointed a

in Margaret Thatcher's resignation honours list in 1990.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hitchen, Brian 1936 births 2013 deaths 20th-century English businesspeople Daily Star (United Kingdom) people English newspaper editors English male journalists English publishers (people) British expatriates in Spain Road incident deaths in Spain British Parachute Regiment soldiers Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Pedestrian road incident deaths People from Chadderton