Ben Lowry: Fond memories of my former editor Jim Flanagan

Jim Flanagan, who died this week at the far too young age of 61, was one of my first editors.
Funeral order of service for Jim Flanagan, former Sunday Life and Ballymena Guardian editor, who died 19th April 2022, aged 61. 
Loving husband of Colette, father of James and Suzanne. Picture by Arthur Allison/Pacemaker PressFuneral order of service for Jim Flanagan, former Sunday Life and Ballymena Guardian editor, who died 19th April 2022, aged 61. 
Loving husband of Colette, father of James and Suzanne. Picture by Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press
Funeral order of service for Jim Flanagan, former Sunday Life and Ballymena Guardian editor, who died 19th April 2022, aged 61. Loving husband of Colette, father of James and Suzanne. Picture by Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press

He was deputy ed at the Belfast Telegraph when I joined there in 2000. I admired him ever since.

Jim’s office was just off the newsroom floor, and he was the go-to person for problems. I once wrote about a planning matter involving a politician who was not shy about suing and my news editor took me to speak to Jim about it. He read the article quickly and said calmly and decisively that the politician could have no complaint with it.

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I also remember the fair way he acted if he was unhappy about something. One Saturday morning circa 2004, on one of my first news editing shifts (where you oversee news), I read out my list of suggested stories. I thought I was well prepared. Jim said: what about X, a story I had not mentioned, and pointed to the screen in his room, and the lead story on BBC Ceefax. I was of a generation that rarely used teletext.

One day, after he became a popular editor of the Ballymena Guardian, Jim had reason to complain when we mis-attributed a scoop in his paper to a rival title in the town. He sent an email and I replied to say that I was mortified, and that it was unintentional. “I have forgotten it already,” he replied, generously.

I also recall that shortly before the Brexit vote the then prime minister David Cameron came into to campaign at a farm in Co Antrim in favour of a vote for the EU. Local newspapers were offered an interview with Mr Cameron at short notice.

It is sometimes hard to get a journalist to work on a Saturday at short notice, but I seized the chance to ask questions of a PM.

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So too did Jim, who had by then moved to the Ballymena Guardian as editor, after several years editing the Sunday Life.

“I thought that if the prime minister was coming into town it would be rude not to,” he told me of his decision to carry out the interview himself, rather than delegate it to another journalist.

l Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor

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