Gerard Loughran

Gerry Loughran started his working life aged 17 in 1953 as a junior reporter for The Northern Echo in West Hartlepool. Four years in Kenya as part of the team which launched the successful Nation group of newspapers led to an 18-year career as a freign correspondent for the American news agency, United Press International, working in Beirut, Paris, Moscow and New York. He later set up Compass News Features, a service providing news of the developing nations, and helped launch the highly praised regional weekly, The East African.
Loughran accepted a commission to research and write a history of the Nation group to mark its 50th anniversary in 2010, Birth of a Nation: The Story of a Newspaper.

In retirement, Loughran began writing short stories, several of which won competition prizes. He also contributes a long-standing column to the Sunday Nation on affairs in the United Kingdom.