Computer Weekly founding editor, Chris Hipwell, dies after short illness

Chris Hipwell, the founding editor of Computer Weekly, the world’s first IT magazine, has died after a short illness

Chris Hipwell, the founding editor of Computer Weekly – the world’s first weekly IT newspaper – has died after a short illness.

Hipwell was managing editor and launched the magazine on Thursday, 24 September 1966, for publisher Reed Business Information.

In an interview in April 2011 – when the publication went 100% online after being in print for 44 years – Hipwell said the magazine was created as a spin-off from another Reed title: "I was working at the time on Data Processing, a quarterly magazine. I realised we were missing out lots of stories and quite a lot of revenue was going into recruitment advertising."

He formulated a plan for a weekly IT title in 1965. "At that stage we got a small group together and came up with the idea of a weekly tabloid newspaper printed on news print," he said.

Hipwell edited Computer Weekly until 1976 and was an avid reader of the publication.

See the first edition of Computer Weekly here >>

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