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John Blake (English journalist)
John Blake (born 6 November 1948) is an English publisher and former journalist. John Blake Publishing was acquired by Bonnier Publishing in May 2016. Blake joined Soho Friday, launched in November 2018, a venture with Richard Johnson and Derek Freeman. Ad Lib Publishing was launched in 2020.
Blake was born in Hitchin, one of four siblings, to a nurse and a soldier who fought in both world wars, ultimately becoming a major. His father suffered a significant financial setback by the time his son was ten.
Blake left school at the age of 17 and gained employment at the Hackney Gazette. Further jobs at an evening newspaper in Luton and a news agency followed.
Beginning as a pop columnist for the London Evening News in the early 1970s, his journalism developed into a column titled "Ad Lib", a gossip column and lifestyle guide. It survived the merger of the Evening News with the Evening Standard. In 1976, he co-wrote the book Up and Down with the Rolling Stones, the memoirs of 'Spanish Tony' Sanchez, friend of, and assistant to, Keith Richards.
Blake was the first editor of 'Bizarre', a column in The Sun launched in May 1982 concentrating on celebrity gossip. Launched when Kelvin MacKenzie was editor of The Sun, his immediate successor in the post was Piers Morgan.
Blake moved to the Daily Mirror and launched a pop column called "White Hot Club". He was the newspaper's Assistant Editor between 1984 and 1988. In 1988, Blake became editor of the Sunday People. It was a position he quickly came to dislike. "I had to wear a suit and I was stuck in an office on my own with a secretary outside", he told Emine Saner in 2004. In his first discussion with the People's owner, Robert Maxwell, he was told to cut costs: "So the very first job I did wasn't some great creative story or hiring a columnist, it was to make a hit list of people I was supposed to fire".
Blake's post as editor of the Sunday People was short-lived. Maxwell hastily announced Blake was being appointed as president of the Mirror Group in the US during the period in 1989 when it was anticipated he would purchase the National Enquirer which lasted until the deal collapsed. In a 2004 interview he said he lost his job and Maxwell hid from him, but did receive a payoff equivalent to two years of his salary.
Briefly, in 1990, Blake was a producer for Sky TV.
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John Blake (English journalist)
John Blake (born 6 November 1948) is an English publisher and former journalist. John Blake Publishing was acquired by Bonnier Publishing in May 2016. Blake joined Soho Friday, launched in November 2018, a venture with Richard Johnson and Derek Freeman. Ad Lib Publishing was launched in 2020.
Blake was born in Hitchin, one of four siblings, to a nurse and a soldier who fought in both world wars, ultimately becoming a major. His father suffered a significant financial setback by the time his son was ten.
Blake left school at the age of 17 and gained employment at the Hackney Gazette. Further jobs at an evening newspaper in Luton and a news agency followed.
Beginning as a pop columnist for the London Evening News in the early 1970s, his journalism developed into a column titled "Ad Lib", a gossip column and lifestyle guide. It survived the merger of the Evening News with the Evening Standard. In 1976, he co-wrote the book Up and Down with the Rolling Stones, the memoirs of 'Spanish Tony' Sanchez, friend of, and assistant to, Keith Richards.
Blake was the first editor of 'Bizarre', a column in The Sun launched in May 1982 concentrating on celebrity gossip. Launched when Kelvin MacKenzie was editor of The Sun, his immediate successor in the post was Piers Morgan.
Blake moved to the Daily Mirror and launched a pop column called "White Hot Club". He was the newspaper's Assistant Editor between 1984 and 1988. In 1988, Blake became editor of the Sunday People. It was a position he quickly came to dislike. "I had to wear a suit and I was stuck in an office on my own with a secretary outside", he told Emine Saner in 2004. In his first discussion with the People's owner, Robert Maxwell, he was told to cut costs: "So the very first job I did wasn't some great creative story or hiring a columnist, it was to make a hit list of people I was supposed to fire".
Blake's post as editor of the Sunday People was short-lived. Maxwell hastily announced Blake was being appointed as president of the Mirror Group in the US during the period in 1989 when it was anticipated he would purchase the National Enquirer which lasted until the deal collapsed. In a 2004 interview he said he lost his job and Maxwell hid from him, but did receive a payoff equivalent to two years of his salary.
Briefly, in 1990, Blake was a producer for Sky TV.