THE well-known Scots broadcaster, Sarah Smith, has been named Scotland editor at the BBC.
Says the BBC, the Scotland 2015 presenter has been appointed to a “new role which has been created to help bring to UK audiences more in-depth analysis and context on big stories in Scotland”.
Adds the BBC: “Sarah previously worked in Edinburgh, Washington and London for Channel 4 News, and returned to the BBC last year to present BBC Scotland’s new current affairs TV programme, Scotland 2014, in the run up to the independence referendum.”
Read more, here.
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BEGINS The Herald: “Scotland’s main law reform body has backed the launch of a drive to overhaul the country’s creaking defamation rules.
“More than 100 prominent writers, launching The Herald’s Freedom of Speech campaign yesterday, warned that current legislation was having a chilling effect on what they could say.”
Read more, here.
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A DEADLINE of February 19 has been set for entries to a competition aimed at marketing professionals in Scotland.
The 2016 Marketing Star Awards has a new chair, Paul Condron, marketing director of Tennent Caledonian Breweries UK.
And he is quoted in an announcement, as saying: “This year’s theme is ‘Aim Higher.’ We know Scotland’s marketing community can rival the very best in the UK but we want to challenge marketers to continually raise their game.”
Read more, here.
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SCOTTISH Cycling magazine – produced and distributed by the publisher of The Herald, Evening Times, Sunday Herald and The National – has created an app for the iPad, comprising 50 cycling routes across Scotland – with interactive maps, features and information on staying safe on your bike.
It has been produced in association with the sustainable transport charity, Sustrans, and to coincide with the magazine – which is issued quarterly and for free via the newspapers published by The Herald & Times Group – reaching its tenth issue.
It can be downloaded for free, from the Apple App Store, here.
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BEGINS an announcement issued by the newspapers, comics and magazines publisher, DC Thomson: “[We have] signed a deal with DHX Brands to secure the magazine publishing rights to Twirlywoos, the hit CBeebies show that follows Great BigHoo, Toodloo, Chickedy and Chick seeking adventure wherever they go.
“Twirlywoos, is a brand new preschool TV series devised and produced by Ragdoll Productions’ Anne Wood, with lead creative and writer, Steve Roberts, and producer, Chris Wood.
“Twirlywoos combines stop-frame animation and live action sequences set in the real world.
“The series is produced in association with DHX Media, which also handles global distribution, merchandising, brand management and marketing.”
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A COMMENT piece by The Herald’s Mark Smith considers the relationship between the BBC and books.
Read it here.
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THE chief executive of Johnston Press is quoted, telling a Westminster committee: “The regional press has closed very few papers over the last few years.
“This is something that is often blown out of all proportion. The papers that have been closed were often the freesheets that were opened in the 1990s to mop up low-yielding advertising revenues when the times were good.”
Ashley Highfield is further quoted – by Mark Sweney, in The Guardian – as saying: “The titles have been closed were those titles: weekly freesheets, usually in communities where a publisher has a paid-for title as well but wished to ring-fence out low yielding, often classified, ads into a secondary title.
“I think you’ll find the numbers of papers of record that have closed over the last decade is incredibly low. That is something that needs to be understood.”
Read more, here.
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