THE editor of Pembrokeshire’s newest newspaper has resigned after just six editions following a ‘needlessly personal attack’ on a senior member of the Western Telegraph’s team.

Bruce Sinclair, who has worked in the newspaper industry for many years, announced his resignation from the Pembrokeshire Herald, effective from today (August 9).

In a statement online Mr Sinclair said he had enjoyed the challenge of creating a new newspaper from scratch but a lack of editorial resources had made his role difficult. “We’ve managed to turn out six editions of the county-wide paper to date with an editorial team consisting only of me, a sports reporter and a photographer, together with some input from the publisher.

“The role of editor is to edit, advise and ultimately take responsibility for the content, fairness, and accuracy of stories, as it would be on any other publication I have worked on.

“Matters were brought to a head yesterday by the manner in what I considered a needlessly personal attack was launched on a senior member of the Western Telegraph in the Herald’s Badger Knows Best comment piece. Despite my rejection of the original text and my repeated protests about its tone, I was overruled, with the result that the comment-style article was sent for publication unaltered.

“As a result, I have come to realise the direction The Herald is taking and my role within it as editor are incompatible.”

Pembrokeshire Herald publisher Tom Sinclair said he had a number of people in mind for the editorship but would take on the role of acting editor in the meantime.

He flatly denied that any protests about the Badger Knows Best comment, written by John Cole, had happened prior to going to press and alleged that Mr (Bruce) Sinclair had tried to have the article pulled without discussion.

“I started this paper with a vision, a vision for a paper that brought news not snooze. A paper that would be edgy not frightened to say what needed to be said and not hold back on telling everyone the whole story.

“I couldn’t be in a situation where the editor I employed was a conservative editor and didn’t share that vision. Bruce didn’t share that vision for the paper and didn’t fit in with what we wanted to do.

“Bruce is a very good journalist but he’s not the right person to be the editor of the paper I had the vision for.”

Tom Sinclair added that the Badger Knows Best comment came under the remit of Pembrokeshire Best, a magazine he publishes, and was nothing to do with Mr Sinclair.