David Dinsmore: Ex-Sun editor steps down as parkrun trustee, was his appointment doomed to fail?
Did parkrun really think the News UK executive would be welcomed by parkrunners in Liverpool?
Less than a month.
The time it took for the move to appoint seven new trustees set to take parkrun to “world class” levels to unravel into the resignation of a man the charity called an “outstanding candidate”.
Yesterday, the former editor of The Sun, David Dinsmore, quit - a decision announced quietly on a parkrun press release entitled ‘Change to parkrun Global Board’.
The move followed 30 days in which the charity had been criticised on social media, a petition had been started calling for Mr Dinsmore to go and the Liverpool Echo had run a story saying the parkrun community had been torn apart.
From the moment the News UK executive was appointed, the move provoked criticism.
During his time at The Sun, Mr Dinsmore defended the publication of Page 3 girls leading to him being named Sexist of the Year by End Violence Against Women in 2014.
He was later found guilty of breaking the law after the paper inadvertently identified the victim of a sexual offence while under his watch.
The Sun was found to have broken the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act over a story about a 15-year-old girl and footballer Adam Johnson, who was later convicted of child sex offences.
It showed a picture of Johnson with the girl. Although her image was heavily obscured, it was identified by social media users.
As reported on this newsletter, people took to social media sites, including Twitter, to challenge and criticise the move.
Some left their roles as run directors. Others said they would not volunteer while Mr Dinsmore continued as a trustee.
The move proved particularly unpopular in Liverpool, where The Sun and all related to that newspaper are shunned by a population furious over the way it reported on Hillsborough.
Running Tales spoke to Sue Roberts, whose brother Graham was killed during the football stadium disaster in 1989.
The former secretary of the now wound-up Hillsborough Family Support Group said she was “absolutely disgusted” by Mr Dinsmore’s appointment.
A petition calling for him to resign reached more than 1,000 signatures.
The campaign, though, could have stalled before it started.
When petition organiser John Henderson turned up at Birkenhead parkrun the week after Mr Dinsmore’s appointment, Sue Roberts was the only other person there protesting - though others did back their cause and the number of runners refusing to hand over their barcode in protest grew as the weeks went by.
But across the country, most people continued to attend their own parkruns, unaware of what was happening or more interested in supporting their local core teams rather than getting involved in what many saw as the politics of parkrun HQ.
The organisation itself originally doubled down on its decision, continuing to espouse the virtues of Mr Dinsmore’s appointment.
Chair of trustees, Gavin Megaw, insisted all the new trustees, “not only align with our objects but also our values”.
And he rallied against those criticising Mr Dinsmore’s association with The Sun, saying everyone has a place at pakrun.
“I feel compelled to remind you that parkrun is for all, including people who read, watch, or listen to News UK outlets,” he said.
“They may not be everyone’s outlets of choice, but they are for many people in this country.
“We do not challenge people on their political choices at parkrun.”
A question and answer session with Mr Dinsmore was put on to ease concerns (it didn’t work), while his credentials as the man who had doubled The Sun’s paywall subscriber base were championed - could he do the same for parkrun by figuring out how to attract those people who have left since the pandemic or came once and didn’t return?
In the end, he was a man with too much baggage. And it was baggage he was still carrying around.
Mr Dinsmore still works for News UK, the company which runs The Sun. While he said he was sorry a teenage victim of sexual crimes was identified, he defended the publication of her pixilated picture.
He does not seem to consider that running the picture in the first place was distasteful or wrong in any way.
His association with The Sun, and in the minds of many with its reporting of Hillsborough - even though he did not work for the paper at the time - was an issue which was never likely to go away.
And perhaps that was parkrun’s biggest mistake.
Not so much whether the appointment was right or wrong, but how they failed to see the opposition coming.
Did they really think the appointment of an ex-Sun editor would be welcomed by parkrunners throughout the country, especially in Liverpool?
It’s a decision that turned sour for them very quickly.