Julian Thorpe
Julian Thorpe, formerly the deputy news editor at The Bolton News, has been appointed as the title’s new multimedia editor. He succeeds David Crookes who stepped down from the position in April.
In his new role, Thorpe will also have responsibility for the digital development of Newsquest’s other titles in the patch spanning the Bury Times, Radcliffe Times, The Guide (Prestwich and Whitefield), Bolton Journal and Bury Journal.
Thorpe began his career at the Barnsley Chronicle in 2005 and moved to the Bolton Evening News in 2008 as a general reporter before becoming the paper’s crime reporter.
In 2011 he was appointed deputy news editor.
Thorpe said that he’d “always been interested in digital, it’s clearly the future of journalism.
“When the opportunity arose, I took it.”
The Bolton News currently has around 420,000 unique visitors a month with the Bury Times attracting around 80,000 unique visitors a month.
There is currently no app available but Thorpe said this is on the way as it is being developed centrally by Newsquest.
In the short term, Thorpe told Prolific North that he intends to gradually introduce a number of new features, primarily revolving around the title’s leisure offers, where he hopes to enhance social media engagement, content coverage and reader interaction.
The Bolton News latest print sale according to ABC was 18620.
The title’s previous multimedia editor, David Crookes, left the title in April this year, having spent 14 years with the paper.
He cited a desire to build a new career as a freelance specialising in IT for trade and consumer titles and as a ‘budding author and exhibition fixer’.
