Tributes have been paid to Sarah Cox (now Colley), the last editor of the Bedfordshire on Sunday (BOS), who died on 18 December after a ‘courageous battle with cancer’, just days before her 38th birthday.
Sarah was well known locally having worked for the BOS first as news editor from 2013 and then as editor from 2014. She was the last editor to oversee the weekly paper, stepping down when it closed in 2017.
She then ‘jumped the fence’ and crafted a successful career in communications working for Luton Borough Council as their Communications and Marketing Manager.
Writing on LinkedIn, her boss at the council, Adam Kearney, Head of Communications and Marketing, called her death ‘desperately sad’.
He added, ‘She was an absolute diamond, a brilliant journalist turned comms manager, a leader, bright, witty, compassionate, hardworking, inspirational and respected everywhere, particularly across Luton.’
Journalistic integrity
Sarah was a passionate journalist who defended the role of local news fiercely.
When Trinity Mirror closed the title and created a midweek publication, she used her last editorial column to express her frustration at the “unfathomable” decision to close what she said was still a profitable title.
The version of her column published in September 2017 was massively watered down, so Sarah posted the original on social media.
‘I am writing one week ahead of the final edition of a newspaper [BOS] which has never erred from its mission to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable (a mission all titles worthy of the name ‘newspaper’ should share),’ she wrote.
‘But in a world where bean counters are king, caring passionately for your product is just not enough, even if it is making money (you could always be making more).
‘My excellent – if dwindling – editorial team has spent countless hours in council chambers, tribunals, courtrooms and town halls to give democracy tangible column inches.
‘Without reporters and newspapers, free speech is little more than a notion.’
She added that the saddest thing about the closure was that ‘a strong voice asking vital questions has now been silenced.’
Obviously management didn't appreciate my final column, replacing my words with a huge picture of Riverside North. Here's the original: pic.twitter.com/x2JuXSIqNm
— Sarah Cox (@says_sarah) September 24, 2017
Sarah’s funeral was held today (3 January) at St Leonards Church, Horringer, Suffolk. She leaves behind a husband and two children.
She was the third major figure from Bedford’s newspaper industry to die in 2024. Neil Roy, long-time editor of the Bedfordshire Times and BBC 3 Counties correspondent, died aged 80 in May.
Then in December, Jacquie Manners, former Bedford Times journalist, news editor and PR consultant died aged 65.
