Gloucestershire Media football reporter Jon Palmer completed the New York Marathon in just under 4hrs and 19mins, shaving five minutes off his personal best.

Jon, who spent some training time with Team GB Olympic runner Dan Robinson in the run-up to this month's race, has raised over £2,375 for the Orchid Cancer Appeal. His official finish place was 18,503rd out of 38,377 runners.

Kilmarnock Standard photographer Amanda Leggat is hoping to raise over £2,000 for the Support Our Soldiers appeal.

Amanda puts images she's taken onto Christmas cards which she then sells. Last year she collected £1,500 for Alzheimer's.

"I realised that the charity did some great work and relied on funds to send parcels to the troops," she told the Standard. "Support Our Soldiers encourages and provides support for the British troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, also soldiers serving overseas and those undergoing rehabilitation."

For more information and to buy some cards visit amandaphoto.co.uk.

Trends in defamation and privacy law and the ways in which they relate to the internet will be examined at the annual IBC Defamation and Privacy conference.

It will examine the effect of legislation in New York State and a bill currently in the US congress which could protect American writers and publishers from so-called 'libel tourism'. Also on the agenda is the apparent decline in jury trials in libel cases, the Reynolds defence, and how the courts are approaching the offer of amends defence.

The conference is on 10 March at Le Meridien, in Piccadilly, London. For more information and to reserve a place visit iir-events.com.

Sun editor Rebekah Wade will be giving the annual Hugh Cudlipp Lecture on 26 January at the London College of Communications. Previous lecture speakers include Michael Grade, Andrew Marr and Alastair Campbell.

The evening will also see a journalism student handed a £1,000 prize by the Hugh Cudlipp Trust for an article or series of articles on an issue of public concern.

Entries must have been published between 1 December 2007 and 12 December 2008 and the student must be enrolled at, or have graduated from, an institution recognised by the Association for Journalism Education during 2008. For details contact the London College of Communications.

Around 160 delegates from media agencies, research companies and publishers attended the Media Research Group's annual conference, in Lisbon.

Chaired by Newspaper Society head of research and insight Keith Donaldson, the three-day conference heard from a host of speakers including Media Week editor Steve Barrett and Jim Kite from MediaVest USA. Speakers focused upon advertising in the digital age and the growth in different media platforms such as mobile phones.