The Times’s media editor, Alex Spence, has left the newspaper after writing an article about the decision by the paper’s sister title, the Sun, to drop Page 3.
In a piece published on 20 January, Spence confirmed what the Guardian had reported on its website the previous day, that the Sun was to discontinue its daily feature of topless models after 44 years. Spence’s piece stated:
“The Times understands that Friday’s edition of the paper was the last that will carry an image of a glamour model with bare breasts on that page, ending a convention that began in 1970”.
It added that Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corp, which owns the publisher of the Times and the Sun, News UK, had “signed off on the change of policy”.
Spence’s article was therefore widely viewed as confirmation that Page 3 had come to an end. He had been given the inside track. Not only that. Anyone who knows how Murdoch’s company operates would be aware that the story would not have been published without high-level approval.
But the Sun published a further Page 3 picture on 22 January, undermining the truth of Spence’s exclusive and casting aspersions on his journalistic credibility.
One commenter to the Times’s website wrote: “Oooof, trolled by your own sister paper. Did nobody from the Sun let the Times’ journalists know that this was a huge scam?”
Spence, in seeking to defend his integrity, reacted by letting it be known that he had been briefed from within the organisation about Page 3’s demise.
He is also said, by Private Eye, to have lodged a complaint with the editor of the Times, John Witherow. The result was the beginning of a disciplinary process in which he was asked to explain how he could improve his work. Yet there had never been any complaint about it previously.
He vanished from the office soon after his last piece for the paper was published on 30 January, as the magazine reported. His Twitter account (@spencetimes) was then taken down.
Now a Times Newspapers spokeswoman has confirmed that Spence has left the paper. She refused to give details about his departure, saying “We do not comment on individual circumstances”.
An inside source suggested it was his decision to leave the paper. but a second source countered that he felt he had no option but to leave under such circumstances.
He was not made redundant because the spokeswoman said: “We will advertise the position [of media editor] in due course”.
Spence was, of course, correct about the end of Page 3. It transpired that the 22 January topless image was the final one run by the Sun. The paper had played a silly joke by pretending that it was to continue with the feature. It would therefore appear that Spence had been properly briefed.
Prior to his appointment as media editor, Spence worked for the business desk covering the professional services and legal business sectors.
A New Zealander, Spence had previously been editor of the Times’s law website after joining the organisation in 2004.
Spence did not respond to emailed inquiries.