A SHORT film about a refused asylum seeker living alone in one of Glasgow’s massive Red Road tower blocks, with only two pet canaries for company, has triumphed at this year’s Refugee Week Scotland Media Awards.
‘The Bird Man of Red Road’, by independent filmmaker, Chris Leslie, scooped the Broadcast category at a presentation ceremony at Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket on Friday evening.
The awards, staged by The British Red Cross, Scottish Refugee Council and the National Union of Journalists, aim – say the organisers – “to encourage fair, accurate and balanced coverage of asylum and refugee issues in Scotland”.
The competition is open to all journalists working for media outlets in Scotland and is judged by a panel of industry figures.
Read more, here.
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FOOD, drink and a ‘pub quiz’ are on the menu at an event being organised by the Scottish office of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.
The Annual IPA Pub Quiz is taking place in Edinburgh, on the 17th of next month, and is being hosted by Radio Forth’s Mark Martin.
‘Media teams’, comprising four folk, are being invited to enter.
For more details, click here.
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A RECENT graduate in American Studies and International Relations from the University of Dundee has been taken on as a trainee journalist at a daily news service specialising in energy news.
Says Scottish Energy News: “Over the past year, Rebecca [Shearer] has been a section editor for The Magdalen – the Dundee University’s student magazine, the deputy editor for DUSA Media and is currently the sub-editor for the International Political Forum. She has also been employed on a number of projects for Dundee-based publisher D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd.”
Read more, here.
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BEGINS an analysis piece on the STV website (here): “There are three questions guaranteed to start an argument in a Scottish newsroom: 1) How much do you get paid?, 2) Is there an apostrophe in St Andrews?, 3) Is Rod Stewart Scottish?
“To this we can now add a fourth: Is Wings over Scotland a legitimate news site?”
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SAYS the Unspun politics diary in The Herald, on Saturday: “Scottish Labour’s education spokeswoman, Kez Dugdale, pulled out of a new BBC radio show after a backlash among corporation journalists over her proposed role as joint presenter, alongside former SNP MSP-turned-PR man, Andrew Wilson. Unspun hears she may be about to win a pretty good consolation prize, however: a column in a Labour-friendly tabloid.”
The show, Crossfire, debuted yesterday, with the agenda of allowing “campaigners from both sides of the referendum debate [to] review the big issues”.
It was presented by BBC Radio Scotland stalwart, John Beattie.
PS Dugdale has a column in today’s Daily Record.
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BEGINS Lesley Riddoch, in today’s Scotsman: “I know that BBC-baiting has become a national pastime. I know first programmes aren’t easy. I know criticism isn’t always valid, pleasant or easy to act upon.
“I know a lot of effort went into the first edition of Crossfire on BBC Radio Scotland at 9am on Sunday morning. But I’m afraid the format creates unlistenable radio and abandons important traditions of Radio Scotland broadcasting at a critical time for Scottish licence fee payers.”
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AND says Scotland on Sunday, yesterday: “Scotland on Sunday readers have helped raise more than £33,000 in just a week after reading a young Scottish man’s account of being diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
“Gordon Aikman, the director of research at the Better Together campaign, said he has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support he has received since his story was published.”
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ROGER Cox, in today’s Scotsman, writes about (here) Edinburgh-based Trafika Europe, “an innovative online radio station broadcasting European literature in English translation”.
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SCOTTISH broadcaster, Andrew Marr, has revealed that his debut novel involves the death of a Conservative prime minister. The former BBC political editor, editor of the Independent and The Scotsman journalist revealed details of his book in the Sunday Times and reported in The Independent.
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SCOTTISH tennis champ, Andy Murray, will guest-edit this week’s issue of The Beano – says a media statement on the website of comic’s publisher, Dundee-based DC Thomson.
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