Trainee journalists at Brighton’s Journalist Works media training company are now getting experience in a business-to-business environment as well as traditional news reporting.

In addition to spending a week on the local evening paper, The Argus, students will also have the opportunity to do work experience with The Grocer.

Based in Crawley, The Grocer is the flagship weekly title of the publishing group William Reed and was recently voted the number one B2B magazine in Britain.

Paula O’Shea, managing director at Brighton Journalist Works, said: “It’s a fantastic chance for our students to experience real jobs in a B2B environment as well as a daily regional newspaper.”

The scheme has already led to a recent Journalist Works graduate being snapped up by The Grocer straight after her course.

Adam Leyland, editor of The Grocer, said: “We are delighted to offer this work experience to encourage students embarking on this course, and to give them an insight into B2B publishing in general, and The Grocer in particular.”

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The row over taxpayer-funded town hall freesheets providing unfair competition for local papers has rumbled on.

Writing in the Independent, media commentator Stephen Glover has branded council-run freesheets as “an abuse of state power.”

“Councils who publish their own propaganda rags are taking no risk, since local council taxpayers are effectively putting up the capital. If their giveaways don’t attract much advertising, and go on losing moderate amounts of money, that is hardly going to matter to them.

“This is surely an abuse of state power, albeit on so small a scale that it has barely provoked any criticism, though the Newspaper Society, which represents regional and local newspapers, is up in arms.”

Lynne Anderson, Newspaper Society communications director, said: “Local authority newsletters and websites can provide useful information to taxpayers about council services.

“But it cannot be right for local authorities to be allowed to use public money to set themselves up as media owners, competing head-to-head with local newspapers for audiences and ad revenues.”

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The weekly Bridlington Free Press is taking its video news bulletins out and about for the summer season.

The team produces a three-minute film each Wednesday, with a preview of stories from the following day’s newspaper, giving visitors to their website the chance to get ‘tomorrow’s news today’.

But instead of presenting the bulletin from inside the four walls of their town centre office, reporters John Edwards and Alan Brook, and web developer Wendy Spalding, are heading for the great outdoors.

Last week saw their first attempt at an outside broadcast, when they read the news at Sewerby Hall, a stately home which has just been named the best place in the UK to enjoy a picnic.

John said: “We only started doing the bulletins about two months ago, but it has developed really quickly.

“The beautiful backdrop at Sewerby Hall added something extra and, being a seaside resort, Bridlington has plenty of locations which would be ideal for our filming. We’re already waiting for a sunny Wednesday so we can go on the beach and read the news sitting in deckchairs!”

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Over 4,000 business leaders in the North-West have subscribed to a new email alert service from business magazine start-up Crains Manchester Business.

The magazine, which recently secured what it hopes will be a readership boosting deal with Virgin Trains, has started sending out a daily email round-up of all of its stories at 3pm each day.

Publisher Arthur Porter says: “Crains is all about breaking news and providing valuable information that can help people grow their business.”

To receive the news alerts, register online at crainsmanchesterbusiness.co.uk

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Former Mr Gay UK, police constable Mark Carter, is running a half-marathon in support of journalist Adrian Sudbury’s bone marrow campaign.

Huddersfield Daily Examiner reporter Adrian, who is dying of leukaemia, is trying to have bone marrow donation lessons added to the sixth form curriculum.

PC Carter is planning to run from Bradford Police HQ to Huddersfield’s biggest gay pride event, the ‘Pink Picnic’, on July 27.

He first pledged his support for Adrian’s campaign to highlight the fact that gay men are now allowed to sign up as bone marrow donors.

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The Newspaper Society has held the last of eight regional roadshows to present the results of its Local Matters research into how social trends vary across the UK.

The NS launched the Local Matters research at the IPA in London last month and has since presented the findings at eight local media publishing centres across the UK. Around 200 delegates from nearly 50 different agencies attended the presentations.