SCMP managing editor David Lague resigns

Stewart Hawkins, editor of the SCMP Magazine, who only joined the company two months ago, has also resigned.

Anne Wong, marketing director for the SCMP, confirmed the news to Campaign Asia.  She says Lague had told the organisation that it had been a 'rewarding' two years but that he felt it was time to "move on" to other opportunities.

Lague, who previously worked for the International Herald Tribune in Beijing, was hired together with the ex-SCMP editor-in-chief Reginald Chua, 18 months ago as a ‘package’. Chua resigned last March to join Reuters in New York. It is widely expected Lague will leave soon, source closed to the news revealed.

Reported in March, Cliff Buddle, a 16-year SCMP veteran, has taken over from Chua as acting editor-in-chief.

Lague's exit follows a string of senior level departures that has many remaining at the SCMP worried about the publication's long term future, one source close to the news said.

"With the departure of these senior editors and management in such a short (time), it would cause chaos in the senior editorial department," the source added. "SCMP editors are part of a revolving door.”