The boss of the Scottish Newspaper Society has joined the protests over the “inadequate” allocation of press passes for next year’s London Olympics.

Jim Raeburn, director of the Scottish NS, revealed that only three Scottish newspapers had gained media accreditation – The Scotsman, The Herald, and the Daily Record, together with freelance photographer.

It means no passes for DC Thomson-owned Press and Journal or Sunday Post, both of which sell more copies than either The Scotsman or The Herald.

The British Olympics Association is beileved to be considering issuing a second tranche of passes following representations from the scottish NS and its English equivalent.

“I have been making representation to the British Olympics Association regarding what we believe to be a serious short supply of accreditation for the Olympic Games,” Jim told Glasgow-based media website The Drum.

“What the BOA are saying to us is that the Olympics receive thousands of applications from media bodies across the world and they are given a share for the UK. Scotland compares well in their view with the rest of the UK, but we feel that it is inadequate.

“As far as the Scottish newspaper industry is concerned, you’ve got to look at the make-up of the market and it’s significantly different from other parts of the UK in that we have certain UK titles who have strong sales within Scotland but they are well represented at the Olympics through their London offices.

“If you look beyond papers such as The Scottish Sun and the Scottish Daily Mail then, for example, the other so-called UK broadsheets, their sales in Scotland aren’t huge.

“The predominant titles are papers such as The Press and Journal, The Courier, The Scotsman, the Daily Record, The Herald and their related Sunday titles. And some of those – The Sunday Mail, The Sunday Post – have got pretty big figures.

“I don’t think they have properly taken those into account in the number of places that they have allocated.”

“I have made clear in the strongest possible terms that I believe the DC Thomson group have a very strong position and that that position will be rectified,” he added.

“Discussions are on-going. BOA are hoping that they might get a second tranche of placements to allocate, although I don’t think they are anticipating that they will be a big number. It’s at that point that we would hope that our argument will be reviewed.”

The Newspaper Society is continuing to hold talks with the BOA to try to put in place a press pool for the Games which will aim to enable regional and local newspapers to share material.

Regional publisher Newsquest, which owns The Herald, has protested to Olympics boss Lord Coe after receiving no passes for any of its 200-plus English and Welsh titles.