BEGINS City of Edinburgh councillor, Richard Lewis, in The Herald, on Saturday: “Recently, I chaired a debate at the City of Edinburgh Council’s Culture and Sport Committee that looked at the future shape of broadcasting in Scotland.
“As convener of the committee, I was keen to follow up our very successful debate on the future of Scottish print journalism held in March.
“Joined by representatives from the NUJ and Napier University’s journalism faculty, the one thing that became clear to everyone present was the Scottish broadcasting industry’s challenge to provide quality regional news and entertainment within limited budgets.”
Read more, here.
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BEGINS The Drum media and marketing magazine: “Better Together, the campaign to keep Scotland a part of the United Kingdom, has appointed M&C Saatchi as the sole creative agency for the remainder of its referendum campaign.”
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“BOSSES at BBC Scotland have pledged to overhaul their personnel policies amid fears of looming strike action during one of the network’s ever busiest summers,” reports the Sunday Herald.
Rachel Loxton continues (here): “The dismissal of Gary Robertson, above, proved to be a flashpoint for discontent at the BBC as has the ‘flying in’ of high-profile presenters like Sarah Smith.
“During negotiations throughout the week, representatives of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) handed over a 64-page dossier which contained a catalogue of complaints from employees.
“An NUJ spokesman said management were ‘taken aback by the evidence’ and that they say they will revamp HR procedures.
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CHECK out the literary credentials of Terry Murden, business editor at The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday – in an extract from his debut novel, Invisible Lies, which appeared in Saturday’s edition of The Scotsman.
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IN praise of readers’ letters. Read Drew Allan’s ‘Inside Track’ column, in The Herald, here.
He writes: “We are in the business of giving readers a voice, both in print and in digital form. Online – where our forums are unashamedly strictly moderated – we publish between 1,000 and 1,500 comments a day, mostly on politics and sport. That adds up to a mind-blowing 70 million words a year.”
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WRITES Judith Duffy, in yesterday’s Sunday Herald: “[Dr Jean] Kilbourne, an internationally-renowned expert on the image of women in the media, is best known for the documentary, Killing Us Softly, a study of the images of women used in advertising first released in 1979.
“She argues that ‘objectifying’ women in advertising and popular culture contributes to a climate which encourages violence against women, an issue exacerbated by the availability of ‘brutal, violent and misogynistic’ pornography online.”
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REPORT outdoor pursuits? Interested in it? Check out our brand new twitter.com/allOutdoorsPR.
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TAKE a moment to watch this, ‘The news where you are’. It’s on the website of wingsoverscotland and it will have you laughing, as it does the congregation being addressed. If the script becomes available, please let us know, here, and we’ll point readers to it.
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ON Tuesday, allmediascotland flagged up the debut book by former Herald writer, Michael Tierney.
The Sunday Herald yesterday published (here) an extract from it, The First Game with my Father.
The book was also the basis of a piece by Hugh MacDonald, in The Herald’s Saturday Magazine.
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WRITES columnist, Iain Macwhirter, in yesterday’s Sunday Herald: “The Press continues obediently to recycle the usual indy-scares – Europe, Pound, Black Hole, etc – and no doubt will continue to do so for the next 100 days.
“Mind you, I’m not sure if it has dawned on them yet, but the Scottish media could face some radical downsizing if there is a No vote.
“It will lose its biggest story overnight and the London press proprietors will rapidly lose all interest in Scotland.
“The clear-out seems already to have begun in BBC Scotland. Last week, it sacked its capable and energetic current affairs presenter, Gary Robertson, presumably preparing for a future of mediocrity and parochialism after the London-Scot presenters go back home.
“An organisation that is incapable of recognising and valuing its own talent is an organisation that has not only lost its soul, but also the plot.”
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BEGINS The Herald, today (here): “Scottish creative design agency, Tayburn, has appointed a new head of planning.
“Vaila Robertson joins the Edinburgh-based firm from Brooklyn Brothers in London, where she focused on the retail and financial services sectors.”
The appointment is also reported in The Scotsman.
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THE Sunday Times enjoyed a year-on-year increase in its sales in Scotland, by 0.14 per cent, insodoing bucking a trend for national newspaper circulation declines.
Says the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the paper’s average sale last month was 46,620, just up on the average for May, 12 months ago, 46,556.
Read more, here.
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