WELCOME to Media Movers, reporting the latest moves within the Scottish media, including promotions and retirements.
FIRSTLY, congratulations to David Leask, named chief reporter at The Herald newspaper, succeeding Lucy Adams, who has been appointed political correspondent at BBC Scotland.
He is currently investigations reporter at sister title, the Evening Times.
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CONGRATULATIONS too to Gareth Rose, home affairs correspondent, these last almost four years, at The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. He has been appointed political reporter at the Scottish Daily Mail.
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AS reported yesterday on allmediascotland.com, New York-based Mark McSherry, a former business editor at The Scotsman and Sunday Times Scotland, has joined The Independent and London Evening Standard group, as US business correspondent.
McSherry, who also previously worked at Reuters, Bloomberg and South China Morning Post, also writes Markets Week Ahead columns for forbes.com.
He will continue as Professor of Communication Arts at St Francis College, Brooklyn.
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ONE of Scotland’s most influential sports journalists, Tom English, is leaving as chief sportswriter at The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday.
English – who is also a well-known and forthright pundit on BBC Radio Scotland – pens, among other things, a mid-week column for The Scotsman. He also writes a column for Scotland on Sunday.
His final column for SoS will be this weekend.
He is taking advantage of a voluntary redundancy offer made by the papers’ publisher, Johnston Press, towards the end of last year.
His decorated career includes five successive Scottish Press Awards, as Sports Feature Writer of the Year.
He is author of two books. One – ‘The Grudge’, about rugby union’s 1990 Grand Slam match between Scotland and England – took the Best Rugby Book prize at the 2011 British Sports Book Awards. It has also had its film rights taken up by Bedlam Productions, arguably best known for making The King’s Speech.
He is also co-author of ‘Behind the Lions: Playing Rugby for the British & Irish Lions’, with Stephen Jones, Nick Cain and David Barnes.
It is understood he plans to take a break from writing, for at least a little while.
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AS published here on allmediascotland.com, a former chief writer on the Sunday Mail newspaper, Donna White, has joined Beattie Communications.
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THE independent TV production company, Mentorn Media, has appointed Iain Scollay as its creative executive, joining Hayley Valentine (recently announced as director of current affairs) in the Mentorn Scotland office, in Glasgow.
Says a media release announcing the appointment: “Scollay joins Mentorn from the BBC and takes on the brand new role of creative executive which will involve him developing new ideas as well as utilising his award-winning expertise to executive produce and make programmes and series, based in Mentorn Scotland’s Glasgow office.
“Beginning his career at London Weekend Television, he produced ITV’s weekly political talk show with Jonathan Dimbleby, Iain subsequently joined RDF where he won BAFTA, RTS and Broadcast awards for Faking It. Moving back to Glasgow, Iain co-founded production company, Matchlight.
“He directed documentaries for strands such as Cutting Edge, One Life and BodyShock. In addition, he won Scottish BAFTAs for Best Factual Series for Mountain with Griff Rhys Jones (BBC One) and Afghanistan: The Great Game with Rory Stewart MP and Best Documentary for Blackwatch: A Soldier’s Story (BBC Two Scotland and BBC Four).”
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CONGRATULATIONS too to John MacInnes, on his recent appointment as senior reporter at the Linlithgow Gazette, Queensferry Gazette and Bo’ness Journal. He previously freelanced for the titles, as well as for the Cumbernauld News and Kilsyth Chronicle.
He has 20 years’ reporting experience, for both weekly and daily newspapers titles, covering general news, with a particular interest in health, crime and investigations.
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