Bridget Rowe

Bridget Rowe (16 March 1950 – 12 January 2021) was a British newspaper editor.

Rowe worked for a succession of magazines: 19, Petticoat, Club, Look Now and Woman's World, before becoming Assistant Editor of The Sun, then editor of "Sunday", the News of the World's magazine. In 1986, Rowe became editor of Woman's Own,^[1] then left to become editor of TV Times.

Rowe edited the Sunday Mirror from 1991 to 1992, then moved to edit The People. In 1993 The People published a photo of Sonia Sutcliffe taken by a freelance photographer that breached Press Complaints Commission code of conduct on privacy.^[2] Her refusal to accept respsponsibility for the actions of the photographer was described by the PCC as "lamentable".^[2]

In 1995, she became managing director of both newspapers, and in 1997 she returned to editing the Sunday Mirror for a year.^[2] After this she served as the Director of Communications for the National Magazine Company, and later was the content director of Yava until it closed in 2001.^[3][2] She was a panelist on the first series of Loose Women in 1999.

A friend^[4] of UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage, Rowe registered as the leader of Libertas UK with the United Kingdom Electoral Commission in December 2008,^[4] in order to prevent Declan Ganley's political party Libertas from fielding candidates in the UK's European Parliament elections in 2009 under that name.^[4] Rowe worked as public relations chief for the businessman and UKIP donor Arron Banks.^[5]

Rowe died from COVID-19 in Farnborough on 12 January 2021, at the age of 70, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.^[6]