AddThis SmartLayers

News in brief

Warwick Wise, a videojournalist with BBC Look North, and Chris Willey, news reporter of the Lincoln Chronicle, have given a lecture at the University of Lincoln, “Are the local media dumbing down?”
The event replaced a scheduled lecture by award-winning journalist Don Hale, who successfully appealed to free a convicted murderer imprisoned for 27 years. He had to postpone the lecture due to illness.


The editor of a student newspaper has defended his decision to publish a glamour photo of a semi-naked woman, page three-style in the independent Edinburgh university paper Student.
The 12,000-distribution paper received a flood of complaints but joint-editor Stewart Bingham said the model wasn’t topless, that the picture was accompanied by debate – and that the item was balanced by a man in a thong later in the paper.


Dramatic tower block fire pictures enabled The Comet in Hertfordshire to get one step ahead of the nationals, when a reader refused to hand his snaps to the national press and insisted they be published in his local paper.
Archant syndication editor Red Williams instead sold the pictures on to the Sun, Telegraph and Mirror on the reader’s behalf.


A workshop to help advance the career of freelances is being run in central London by the Women Writers Network on Saturday.
Jill Eckersley and Sally-Jayne Wright will host the event which includes topics such as Setting your goals, How to find more work, How to keep going when the going gets tough, and The M word (money). The cost is £45 members, £55 non-members and more information can be obtained from Jill 0207 388 5622 or Sally-Jayne 0208 675 3522.


Gary Hoffman has joined Trinity Mirror as a non-executive director. He is chief executive of Barclaycard and a director of Barclays.
Two non-executive directors are to step down – David Marlow and Penny Hughes will retire from the board after the company annual meeting in May.