Mr Jim Fitzpatrick is a wealthy Catholic businessman in his 60s who effectively owns the Irish News, the North's main nationalist paper.
Born into a Belfast legal family, he trained as a solicitor and worked for the family firm. He took over the Irish News from the McSparrans, another established Catholic legal family, in 1982 after a High Court action between the two families was settled.
He was the paper's managing editor until 1989, and since then has been its chairman and chief executive at a time of considerable expansion and rising circulation. One of his first moves on taking over was to ban IRA death notices from its columns. He also has considerable property interests, including the Fountain Centre in Belfast city centre.
He is known to be a deeply devout Catholic, with a special devotion to the Novena at the Redemptorist Clonard monastery in the Falls Road, where Father Alex Reid works.