Blunt the blogger is dead, but his spirit fights on!

Like Fleet Street Blues, which named him the top journalism blogger of the year, I've long been a fan of Blunt, who wrote the Playing the Game blog about life as a journalist working at the sharp end of the regional press.

Blunt's rages at incompetent management and hapless PRs were a bit like a blog version of Press Gazette's irascible Grey Cardigan, the down table sub who has clawed his way up to being an editor.

Sadly for his fans, Blunt's blog has remained fallow since May and there were suspicions that he had been identified by his bosses and sacked or moved on.

But all is revealed today in a missive to Fleet Street Blues.

Blunt writes: Hi guys,

Appreciate the accolade and just wanted to update you on my situation.

For those that care, I'm still here fighting the good fight on a newspaper somewhere in the UK, still swearing, still blowing my top at PRs and screaming inside at the hopeless management toss pots driving us further into decline.

I gave up writing the blog fashionably early as it was taking up too much of my free time to do it justice and I was always fearful of a tug from management in case they ever sussed me out.

Although Blunt's blog is now dead, I hope his spirit lives on and maybe a bit will rub off on my overworked reporting team when they move on to pastures new.

I may be back in the New Year with a different venture and rest assured I will let you know if I do.

Cheers

Here is a sample of Blunt's thoughts on newspaper managements:

"Senior managers continue to be paid bonuses while profits fall, titles close, journalists get sacked and our pay is frozen yet again.

"The thing is we in the newsrooms actually do believe in the importance of local papers, it's a criminal shame our MDs really don't give a fuck. Newspapers to them are vehicles to make cash so they can tick the right boxes, fill out forms and hit targets so they achieve their OTT this quarter.

"Editorial is an expensive and irritating evil to these tossers. If they could sack us all tomorrow and fill it with ads they would without hesitation."