A former Brighton reporter is the only working journalist on the appointments panel of a new press regulator.
Richard Gurner, 32, who now edits the Caerphilly Observer in South Wales, is one of the Impress Project’s nine-member appointments panel.
Mr Gurner, who studied at Sussex University and City College Brighton and Hove, worked for the Argus in Hollingbury from 2006 to 2011, with a brief stint in public relations in Hove.
Impress is intended to be an independent regulator of the press in line with the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry.
It faces a rival in IPSO (the Indpendent Press Standards Organisation) which is taking over from the Press Complaints Commission. The shortcomings of the PCC as a regulator has seen it dissolved.
Impress appointments panel chairman Aidan White said: “I’m delighted to welcome the members of the Impress appointment panel to their new roles and I look forward to working with them.
“It is now up to us to choose the board and take another step towards establishing Impress, the Independent Monitor for the Press, a truly independent press regulator.”
Impress founding director Jonathan Heawood said: “I’m pleased to welcome the new members of the appointment panel.
“In keeping with Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations, they have been transparently and openly selected.
“With their broad range of backgrounds, they will bring great expertise and insight to the process of appointing an independent and high-calibre board to Impress.”
Mr Gurner, who set up the Caerphilly Observer as a website in 2009, said: “I hope I can do it justice.”
He started a print version last year which now publishes every fortnight in addition to the website.
