Silvester Bolam

Silvester Bolam (23 October 1905 – 27 April 1953) was a British newspaper editor.

Born in Tynemouth, Northumberland, Bolam studied at the University of Durham's Armstrong College before joining the Newcastle Journal. He then moved to work for the News Chronicle, and in 1936 became a sub-editor on the Daily Mirror. Although he left in 1938 to rejoin the News Chronicle, he returned ten months later, and in 1948 became the newspaper's editor.[1]

As editor, Bolam focused on a strategy of sensationalism, and was able to make the Mirror Britain's best-selling daily newspaper. In March 1949, after publishing material which might have prejudiced the trial of John George Haigh (later convicted of murder), he was jailed for three months for contempt of court.[2][3] By 1953, he had fallen out with the paper's editorial director and resigned. He died a few months later.[1]

References
  1. "Bolam, Silvester", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  2. Roy Greenslade (2004). Press gang: how newspapers make profits from propaganda. Pan Macmillan. p. 40. ISBN 0-330-39376-6.
  3. Daily Herald, 26 March 1949, p.3
Media offices
Preceded by
Cecil Thomas		 Editor of the Daily Mirror
1949–1953		 Succeeded by
Jack Nener
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