Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has been confirmed as the main speaker at next month’s charity lunch for the Glasgow and West of Scotland branch of the Journalists’ Charity. The lunch is on April 6.

IRN newsreader and reporter Ruth Hill has died, aged 51. Before her career in radio, she started off in journalism in 1975 as a reporter, and later editor, of the Southport Star. She read IRN bulletins for 14 years before becoming the voice of breakfast in London by reading IRN updates for London’s Magic 105.4.
Ruth joined IRN in 1989, and in the early 90’s she battled through and fought off Hodgkin’s Disease.

Birmingham PR company Actuality Media has won is first major slice of business with a campaign to promote voter turn-out in 90 of the 312 English local council elections this May and in five constituency ballots for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly.
Actuality Media was set up by Mik Barton, former media chief of the West Midlands transport authority Centro-PTA.
The company has been appointed by AboutMyArea, a growing national network of local websites, to help position the brand as a vital source of community information run by members of each local community. Each of the live sites based in an area where elections are being held will act as a one-stop-shop for voter information.

Online listings magazine The List has announced a commitment to broaden its online presence with the appointment of four former key members of The Scotsman’s award-winning website.
The new team, to be based at the company’s head office in Edinburgh, will be led by Alistair Brown, who has spent the past seven years as an executive with scotsman.com. His new colleagues are Justine Watt, business development manager, formerly in similar roles with scotsman.com and most recently NEWS.com.au; Bruce Combe, senior designer, formerly with scotsman.com; and Andy Carmichael, senior developer, also formerly with scotsman.com.

Reading & Learning, a ground-breaking series of Newspapers in Education guides that target diversity as a core element, has just been published by the World Association of Newspapers.
The three-part series, which includes guides for newspaper executives, NIE coordinators and teachers, was unveiled at the 7th World Young Reader Conference & Expo in Washington DC. The guides are available in English or Spanish.