Richard Bowyer

About

I am a Senior Lecturer in Journalism, specialising in print, newspapers and magazines, and online journalism.

Teaching responsibilities

I teach right across all the courses we deliver, including online, print, both newspapers and magazines and social media. At the heart of what I do is to get students to tell great stories in the best possible format or design for the right audience.

Professional interests

I am interested in anything happening in the media industry. This includes the struggle faced by the print industry to find the right business model as their audience moves online, the development of the web and social media for journalists, innovation in reporting, media ethics and law.

Research interests

I am looking at the changing face of the regional press, media law and ethics, Leveson, IPSO and journalistic standards. I have presented research papers at a number of conferences both in the UK and Europe.

Membership of professional bodies

I have been a course and exam assessor for the National Council for the Training of Journalists. I am a member of the British Society of Magazine Editors. I am also an external examiner for the journalism courses at the University of Lincoln.

Qualifications

Graduate Diploma in Communications
Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education at the University of Derby 2016
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Recent conferences

Presented a paper to the AJE conference in Canterbury on Employability Days;
Attended Newsrewired conference;
Presented paper on Employability Days and the University of Derby's Learning and Teaching conference.
Presented a paper on the decline of the regional press to the 18th Annual International Conference on Communication and Mass Media, in Athens, Greece

Experience in industry

I am an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years of experience in the media industry. During my career, I have fulfilled most of the jobs in the newsroom, from editor-in-chief to news editor, chief designer and night editor. My career started as a junior reporter on the Coalville and Ashby Times before I moved to the Peterborough Evening Telegraph. I rose to the position of news editor before leaving to forge a career at the Wolverhampton Express and Star, the biggest-selling regional newspaper outside London. I then moved to the Derby Telegraph where I started as district news editor.

I helped to grow the number of editions of the newspaper to seven before becoming deputy news editor. I learned to design and became district editor and then night editor. I left to become Deputy Editor of the Lincolnshire Echo. During my time at the paper, we won the Newspaper Society Regional Daily Newspaper of the Year and I won an award for my front page designs. I became deputy editor of the Stoke Sentinel, which was the biggest regional newspaper in the old Northcliffe Newspaper group boasting at that time 139 editorial staff. I was involved in major group projects as part of the radical transformation of the industry including the standardisation of the editorial systems across the group and I was at the forefront of the project to create centralised production hubs.

I later helped to dismantle the hubs and return newspapers to locally subbed publications. I became Editor-in-Chief of the Stoke Sentinel and Group Editor of West Staffordshire Newspapers which included the Leek&Post Times, the Staffordshire Newsletter, and the glossy lifestyle magazine Staffordshire Life. I was also in charge of all the publications associated web sites and before I left The Sentinel to join the University of Derby I had been at the forefront of the digital revolution at the newspaper helping to grow the online audience by 70 percent year-on-year.

Campaigns I have been involved with include helping to jail a corrupt councillor, fighting to get a museum built in Lincoln, saving the name of the Staffordshire Regiment, helping to keep the Staffordshire Hoard, the greatest-ever find of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver in the county and saving the Wedgwood Collection.

Additional interests and activities

My interests and achievements have often matched my campaigns through the newspapers and websites I have worked for. So I was delighted to have helped raise thousands of pounds through a public fund-raising campaign to help build Lincoln Museum. Similarly, I was involved in raising £3m to ensure that the Staffordshire Hoard, the greatest-ever find of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver, could be kept in Staffordshire.

I was also the mastermind behind a plan to help in the regeneration of North Staffordshire with the idea of creating a giant ‘Staffordshire Saxon’ in the style on the Angel of the North to capitalise on the possible income from having the Hoard in Stoke-on-Trent. So far two Saxon statues have been created and with the right funding a 'giant' one could be built. I have also been keen to drive literacy levels up wherever I have worked. With this in mind, I was the driving force behind the first-ever Stoke-on-Trent Literary Festival.

I worked with former MP Tristram Hunt and pottery owner Emma Bridgewater to ensure the event took place. I used the event as a vehicle to improve literacy in the area by launching TooWrite Stoke! a writing competition for all ages. I was a member of the board of North Staffordshire YMCA, which does brilliant work in the community. Finally, I'm an average cricketer and by default have ended up as secretary of the club and occasional club cook.

In the media

I have appeared on both local and national radio to discuss issues regarding the regional newspaper industry. I am also asked for expert comment on issues which arise regarding the changing face of the print business.

Recent publications

Two of my research articles on the changing face of the regional press:

I also write a blog about the media industry called Media Village.