Nicky Cox

Nicky Cox MBE (born March 1966) is a British journalist. As of 2011 she is editor of First News, a British national newspaper for children.

Nicky Cox, neé Smith, began her career in regional newspapers, as a trainee reporter with the Croydon Advertiser Group, part of Portsmouth and Sunderland Newspapers. Eighteen months later she won the Jesse Ward Young Journalist of the Year Award. She went on to work as a sub-editor on The Sunday Mirror and The Sunday Times. She took up the post of launch editor of Early Times, a newspaper for children, which had limited private financial backing. Cox once took four child reporters to 10 10 Downing Street to interview Margaret Thatcher.

Shortly afterwards she joined BBC Worldwide (then called BBC Enterprises) with a brief to launch a junior version of the Radio Times. The first magazine she launched for the BBC in 1989 was Fast Forward. She went on to work for 13 years as editorial director of the children's division at the BBC launching some 50 children's magazines in total, ranging in age from Teletubbies through to Top of the Pops. She was also editorial director of BBC children's books, DVD and audio in the UK. She sat on the BBC brand development board, working on programmes such as Tweenies. While at the BBC she became executive producer of two charity concerts at Wembley Stadium in aid of ChildLine, which featured Boyzone, Dannii Minogue and Take That.

While working at the BBC, Cox first met Piers Morgan who was editing The Sun newspaper's Bizarre page at the time. Before the launch of First News, Cox worked as editorial director at Tree Top Media for four years launching magazines including Tinkerbell and Ant & Dec's pre-school animation, Engie Benjy, as well as ITV's Pop Idol. During this period she became a BAFTA judge for children's television programmes.

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