TWO of Scotland’s best-known sportswriters are joining BBC Scotland.
Tom English – recently of The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday – and The Herald’s Richard Wilson are being taken on to boost the news, features, analysis and op ed content of www.bbc.co.uk/sportscotland.
Wilson – who has built up considerable expertise about the various financial and other issues facing Rangers FC these last couple of years – joins next week. English – who took up a voluntary redundancy package being offered towards the end of last year by The Scotsman’s publishers, Johnston Press – has just started.
They will be both involved in other BBC output.
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WHAT the Scottish media might look like were Scotland to become independent is to be considered by a panel of well-kent Scots commentators, including Herald and Sunday Herald columnist, Iain Macwhirter.
The discussion is being organised by the two branches of the National Union of Journalists in Edinburgh – Edinburgh Freelance and Edinburgh & District – in association with the Edinburgh TUC.
Among those also taking part are former NUJ president, Peter Murray, and newspaper columnist, Lesley Riddoch. Murray is a former producer at BBC Radio Scotland.
The event is taking place a week on Monday. For more details, click here.
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IN a similar vein, what the public relations sector might look like were Scotland to become independent is being asked at the upcoming annual conference of the Scots division of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
Five topics are up for discussion at Future PRoofing, the second annual conference of CIPR (Scotland).
The conference is taking place a week today. For more details, click here.
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YOU might have spotted mention of it in yesterday’s edition of The Scotsman, in the ‘People’ section within the business pages: news of a debut novel penned by a journalist-turned-PR-account director.
Campbell Hart was at BBC Scotland for two years until five years ago, when he then took up PR roles, first at the Big Lottery and then the charity, Oxfam.
He is now with The BIG Partnership PR agency and his novel, Wilderness, sounds not for the faint-hearted, if the blurb is anything to go by: “The bus is stranded, stuck fast in a snowdrift. The driver is missing along with a young girl. A half-naked woman is left behind, handcuffed and freezing on board. Who she is and where the girl has gone unravels into a web of sexual abuse, mental torture and deeply laid family rivalries, spanning from Istanbul to Glasgow.”
Read more, here.
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TV and film productions in Glasgow have reportedly injected £20 million into the city.
Says STV: “Film and broadcasting projects brought almost £20 million into Glasgow’s economy in 2013. Glasgow Film Office, run by the city council, said it had received 343 location inquiries in 2013, with 231 productions being shot the city.”
The Herald’s take on the story is in the context of the city apparently ‘rejecting’ earlier reports that technical reasons prevented the building of a film and TV studio.
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SPECULATION that the publisher of The Scotsman and several other Scots newspapers might go to shareholders, seeking more funds, has been confirmed.
Says The Scotsman today: “Johnston Press, the newspaper publisher which owns The Scotsman, yesterday confirmed it was considering a potential equity fundraising as part of a proposed refinancing of its debt.
“In a stock market statement, the company said that it was considering a range of options but that ‘the quantum of any equity fundraising has not yet been determined’.”
A statement on the Johnston Press website can be read, here.
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THE Scots sportswriter, Hugh McIlvanney, has been nominated in this year’s British Sports Journalism Awards.
The Sunday Times writer is shortlisted in the columnist category, with the winners announced on the 24th of this month.
He is up against Mike Atherton (The Times), Patrick Collins (Mail on Sunday), Matt Dickinson (The Times), Matthew Syed (The Times) and David Walsh (Sunday Times).
Read more, here.
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A NEW student radio station has launched, serving students in Glasgow.
Glasgow Clyde Radio began broadcasting earlier today, at Glasgow Clyde College.
Read more, here, in a media release posted on allmediascotland.com.
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FREELANCE page designers are being sought by Romanes Media Group as advertised here on allmediascotland.com. To post media vacancies – broadcasting jobs, PR jobs, marketing jobs, advertising jobs, digital media jobs, newspaper jobs, etc, etc – on allmediascotland.com, email here for more details as to how.
And that’s not all: the Evening Express newspaper in Aberdeen is seeking a senior reporter, as advertised here.
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THE Scottish Sun’s often-derided Page 3 has teamed up with a breast cancer awareness charity to urge women to regularly check themselves for possible signs of the disease. ‘Check ‘em Tuesday’ will, every Tuesday, comprise a reminder on Page 3.
The campaign launch is splashed on the paper’s front page today.
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THE Scots PR agency, Volpa, has been appointed to handle the marketing and public relations for the whisky distillery visitor centre, The Famous Grouse Experience – as announced in a media release, here.
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