Press Gazette RIP

Just feel I have to add my eulogy to those on the demise of UK Press Gazette which has been part of my life for 30 years. I got my first proper job from it, appeared in it several times, wrote the odd piece for it and even sat on its judging panels.

In fact, pride of place on my study wall is a framed UKPG award for reporting. It's the one I always put on my CV, more for the kudos of the Press Gazette name than the achievement it commemorates.

An attempt to get an industry consortium to save it didn't achieve the support it needed so, in the face of competition from a growing mainstream interest in media matters, such as Media Guardian which gutted its jobs pages, it folded.

In many ways this was inevitable but there lies the nonsense. Anyone who watches Have I got News for You will know there's a journal - often ridiculously quirky, always well-supported - for every industry.

I just find it odd that, if there's a magazine for the serious goat breeder and one for miners specifically interested in tunnelling and trenchless construction, how on earth can the very people who are the media be denied one of their own?

It's like General Motors not having a car park or Google not having broadband.