Paul Eccleston
Fleet Street veteran who as a Daily Telegraph news executive guided countless young reporters
PAUL ECCLESTON, who has died aged 67, was a journalist and mainstay of Fleet Street news desks for four decades, serving as a senior news executive at The Daily Telegraph for 12 years.
Generations of young reporters were guided by Eccleston, whose flawless news judgment, often exercised under great pressure, made him an indispensable part of the newspapers he served.
Endowed with invincible calm and a world-weary wit, he issued praise and admonition in the same understated manner, eschewing the histrionics favoured in some news operations. He was immensely hard-working and an exemplary professional, whose kindness earned him great loyalty.
Eccleston did not waste words. If a correspondent seeking space for a story tried too hard to sell his or her ropey wares, he would hear them out before pausing, emitting his trademark sigh and issuing the crushing instruction: “OK, but keep it short.”
A product of the old school, trained on local weekly and daily newspapers before graduating to the Press Association, Eccleston worked for five national newspapers between 1979 and 2010, a period of tumultuous change in the industry. Through it all, he maintained a reputation for reliability that ensured he was always in demand.
Though softly spoken, he knew how to make his point. A newly arrived reporter at the Telegraph who marked a
quiet news day with a marathon liquid lunch in the company of an established colleague was cautioned: “He can do that because he’s got fuel in his tank. You’ve yet to fill yours.”
Desk work can be a thankless task. While reporters experience stories at first hand and are rewarded with bylines, news executives plough away anonymously – instructing, advising and cajoling while dealing with offerings of varying quality.
In 2004 Eccleston made a temporary bid for freedom when he joined the Telegraph team in Normandy covering the 60th anniversary of D-day.
Adopting a roving role away from the ceremonial set-pieces, he chanced upon the burial of a German paratrooper killed during heavy fighting in July 1944. The soldier’s remains had been discovered only the previous week hidden deep in a hedgerow of the bocage. The result was a spare and moving story, and an exclusive one, too.
Paul Maurice Eccleston was born in Salford on July 31 1951, the son of Peter Eccleston, a department store commissionaire, and the former Mary Ann Chappell. The actor Christopher Eccleston, born in 1964, was a nephew.
Paul attended Salford Grammar School and at the age of 16, ignoring the advice of his careers master, decided upon a career in journalism, later securing a place on the journalism course at Harris College in Preston.
Beginning on the weekly Farnworth and Worsley Journal, he graduated first to the Bolton Evening News and then the Liverpool Echo and Post, before joining the Press Association as a reporter in 1976. He moved to the Manchester office of the Daily Express in 1979, rising to assistant news editor.
In 1986 he joined his friend Colin Myler on the new colour tabloid Today, serving as his deputy on the news desk; Myler referred to him as “my rock”. The Daily Mail followed in 1989, and in 1995 Eccleston was appointed head of news at the Belfast Telegraph. A year later he returned to London to work for the Daily Mirror.
In 1997 he was appointed deputy news editor of the Telegraph, where he was later promoted to executive news editor. In 2010 he left the Telegraph and helped set up fish2fork.com, a guide to sustainable fish restaurants.
Soon after, he fell ill with cancer and began a long and gruelling struggle with the side effects of his initially successful treatment. Despite great suffering, which he bore with customary stoicism, he continued to work on local publications while living at his seaside home in Folkestone. He even founded a magazine, Martello News.
Paul Eccleston was a lifelong football fan, an avid supporter of Manchester United, and had a trial for Bury in his youth. He was also a keen angler, one of the highlights of his year being a trip to the lakes of Co Fermanagh with close friends.
Some of his ashes will be scattered on Lough Melvin on his birthday, satisfying his wish – as he put it, with typical dark humour – to “sleep with the fishes”.
Paul Eccleston is survived by his wife Kelly (née Scott), stepsons Lennie and Charlie, and his daughter Katie and son Conor from his previous relationship.