THREE journalists have resigned their membership of the Liverpool Press Club after a senior executive on the Sun was announced as its new president.
Dingle-born David Wooding, assistant political editor at the tabloid which has been widely boycotted in Liverpool since its coverage of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, says on his website he was unanimously elected to the position.
However, members say the first they knew of it was when an invitation to the club's Christmas party was circulated on email.
The news prompted three well known members to immediately quit the club, describing the appointment as “fairly unbelievable”.
Consulted
In the email, which went out last week, Mr Wooding said: " It is a wonderful honour to be invited to be your President for 2013, which I am proud and delighted to accept. It is now 27 years since I left Liverpool to advance my career in Fleet Street - but I always look forward to returning for the annual Press Club lunch."
Dave Wooding One of the members who quit did not want to be named but said: “The Sun is not something that we, as journalists working in Liverpool, want to be associated with – or can be associated with. I've never met David Wooding and colleagues say he's a very nice chap, but essentially no one consulted us on this, no one asked us about it.
"Put it this way, had it been put out to a vote, this would never have happened.”
The Liverpool Press Club has more than 200 members, many of them now working in the PR field or retired.
However its role has changed out of all recognition in recent years. Where once the club was a physical presence in the city (housed in the basement of the Adelphi in the 1980s) it now it only meets for social occasions.
The journalist addded: “There are about two events a year and you meet some of the lads from the TV and some from the radio who you don't see very often.
"It's not important, but even if it was important, it's not something we would have agreed with. It's already causing ructions in certain parts of the city.”
Strip
Another added: "I've nothing personal against David Wooding or the Press Club. It's just that hearing a Sun journalist has been made president will anger a lot of people in this city and I don't want to be a part of it."
News of Mr Wooding's role sparked fury among Liverpool football club fan forums, with one, the Anfield Wrap, demanding the club “recognise their mistake (and) strip Wooding of his title”.
Referring to Hillsborough and the Sun, it said: “Awareness may not stretch the length and breadth of the UK, into Europe or worldwide, but in Liverpool it’s hard to plead ignorance. Feelings run high to this day, and most are aware of that fact – particularly those working in the media.”
The old Press Club in
the Adelphi HotelIt follows last month's revelation that Wooding's boss, Victoria Newton, the new editor of the Sun on Sunday, is an LFC fan, also born in the city.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Liverpool branch of the NUJ applauded the decision of the members to resign, bit said the club was "an irrelevance".
Mike Rickett said: “The Liverpool Press Club is nothing more than a luncheon club and with the parlous state of media in this city, most of the journalists left are too busy trying to scratch a living to have time to be part of it.”
In a statement, the Liverpool Press Club said: "David Wooding is a respected colleague who has pursued a distinguished journalist career in Merseyside and elsewhere.
