Ex-Post executive launches media business

THE BIRMINGHAM POST’S former executive editor has launched his own media consultancy which is based in the North East, but whose ‘virtual network’ employs many former colleagues in the West Midlands.

After 20 years with the Post, Mike Hughes left the Trinity Mirror title at the end of last year and has just launched Mike Hughes Media Advisers   from his new base in Darlington, County Durham.

The business offers a range of media skills, from  corporate strategies and training packages to writing press releases and feature articles.

He said:”It’s an interesting exercise to deconstruct three decades as a journalist and realise how key those skills are in any media sector today. I’ll still be using social media, working to deadlines, dealing with boardrooms and reporters, designing and rewriting and using the production systems I helped develop at Birmingham.”

Liverpool-born Hughes is working with a team of ‘virtual associates’ at MHMA, including former Post writer Jayne Howarth, former Birmingham Mail Education Correspondent Tony Collins and his former editor’s PA Debbie Hemming alongside freelances he has in the North-east.

“When you’re working with freelances, working remotely is just as viable when the client and writer are 100 miles apart as when they are 10 miles apart. My associates are self-employed, but having their skills available at MHMA is a huge plus, and it is opening up a new area they would not otherwise have seen. I act as the middleman, setting up the project and overseeing the results as well as managing my own workload as the main focus of the site.”