Birthday Honour for Community Champion

Ian Mean MBE

A former news chief on the Birmingham Evening Mail says he feels “very honoured” at being made an MBE in the Queen’s Jubilee Honours. Ian Mean (pictured), who went on to become a long-serving regional daily editor, received the award for services to the community on his patch.

Ian edited the Gloucester Citizen from 2002 until 2012 when he left to become content director for Local World’s titles in the South West. He was also editor of the Western Daily Press from 2014 to 2015.  

Although now retired, Ian, aged 75, still works in the community and has chaired the Gloucestershire Hospitals Organ Donation committee for the last seven years.

He said: “I feel very honoured that this is the Queen’s special birthday honours list. I’m a person with strong views and opinions as an editor, and I was not always popular. But I like to think I was a critical friend and was always keen to be constructively critical where necessary.

“I believed in campaigning and I don’t believe an editor’s job is just journalism, it’s got to be tied to issues. I was very keen on issues, whether they were supporting the armed forces, to fighting to keep the Gloster’s regimental badge, or campaigns that really affected people,” he added.

Ian began his career as a trainee reporter at the South London Observer. He then moved to Sheffield where he worked as crime reporter at the Morning Telegraph before moving to Manchester to join the Daily Mail. After that he worked for the Daily Express, the Birmingham Evening Mail, and the Daily Mirror before joining the Citizen.

Ian added: “When I was chief editor at the Birmingham Mail 35 years ago, I had 68 reporters all over the West Midlands. Those were big big days, the golden days of newspapers in the regions. That paper was selling 360,000 a night at that time and it’s now selling about 23,000. They were very exciting days.”