Welcome to the journalism news digest – a weekly round-up of what’s been making the news on HoldtheFrontPage over the past seven days.

It’s hopefully going to become a regular feature of the site – so we would welcome any feedback in the comments section below.

Anyway without further ado, it’s certainly been a week the Worksop Guardian and its editor George Robinson won’t forget in a hurry.

The trial of Worksop-born Neil Entwistle has attracted worldwide media attention, but the Guardian still managed to score a web-first world exclusive by getting his parents’ reaction to the guilty verdict on its website before it had been anywhere else.

Thankfully for George, Thursday’s verdict arrived before the paper’s 2pm print deadline – although he had taken the precaution of preparing two versions of the story just in case.

Another local paper which managed to beat the nationals was the Lancashire Telegraph in Blackburn, first with the news that Paul Ince had been appointed Blackburn Rovers’ new boss.

The week has seen two big industry-wide stories – the publication of fresh BBC plans for ultra-local video channels which were swiftly criticised by the Newspaper Society, and a House of Lords report which called for tighter controls on media mergers.

In another report, the Pitt Review into last summer’s floods, the regional media were praised for their public information role during the 2007 deluge.

Johnston Press has also been much in the news this week. With bid rumours flying round the City, and making it into the pages of one or two national newspapers, chief exectuive Tim Bowdler felt the need to issue a categorical denial that the company was for sale.

The speculation in any case seems to have been dampened by the success of Johnston’s rights issue which has raised £170m.

People moves saw Murray Morse taking up an editorial consultancy role with the NCTJ two months after leaving the chair of the Cambridge Evening News, and the retirement of Johnston’s head of digital John Bradshaw who created the “Today” network of local sites.

Meanwhile a journalist with a famous name went to a better place – sports reporter Gordon Brown died at 71.

Last week’s jobs gloom continued as the Northern Echo confirmed it was going down to two editions with the loss of five editorial posts, though editor Peter Barron denied it would affect its status as a flagship regional title.

And on the awards front, the top prize at the North West Press Awards went to one of the region’s smaller daily titles, the Bolton News.

Possibly our favourite story of the week here at HoldtheFrontPage HQ, though, was the one about the hungry hack who has been eating and drinking his way through the Euro 2008 football tournament.

William Telford, investigations editor of Plymouth’s Herald, has been covering each game by comparing the traditional cheeses and beers of the two countries taking part and writing up the results on his blog.

His comment “I was a straight cheddar and Dairylea triangles man before this” wins our unoffficial quote of the week prize.

Who said the traditional arts of journalism were dead?