A Leicester Mercury campaign encouraging its readers to shop locally has been backed by Gary Lineker.

The ex-England international footballer is one of the city’s most famous sons and grew up helping his parents run a fruit and veg stall in Leicester Market.

Gary told the Mercury: “It’s a great idea. I hope people keep supporting the campaign.

“We’re living in difficult times and people need to support local businesses as much as possible.”

Press Association MD Tony Watson will be taking part in a debate on the outsourcing of newspaper and magazine page production.

His speech ‘Outsourcing: Better Price, Better Service – Worse Newspapers?’ will form part of the Publishing Expo at London Olympia tomorrow and Thursday.

PA has been providing outsourced page production to the industry for 20 years and now creates 9,000 pages a week for more than 220 newspapers and magazines.

The free debate takes place at 3.15pm tomorrow in Theatre B – the panel includes MediaGuardian columnist Roy Greenslade and Martin Cloake, media consultant and production journalist.

Former local press photographer and TV cameraman Jim Parry has died aged 87.

Mr Parry was based in North Wales and started his photography career cycling around the area taking pictures of weddings and football matches for papers such as the Daily Post.

He also founded an agency in Rhyl supplying photos to local and national newspapers.

Political columnist with the Sunday Herald and Herald Iain Macwhirter could be the new rector at the University of Edinburgh by tomorrow evening.

Iain is an award-winning writer who has previously worked for the BBC as its Scottish political correspondent and has been with the Glasgow titles for ten years.

He is up against Labour MSP Lord George Foulkes – voting takes place this week with the winner announced on Thursday.

Journalist Jessica Powell is looking for case studies of women who have been married and divorced by the age of 27 for a glossy magazine feature.

In return for telling their story, they’ll get a glam photo shoot in London and a fee for taking part. Anyone interested should email Jessica on [email protected].

Channel M, the Manchester Evening News’ local TV sister station, has been granted a licence to broadcast digitally.

The award is a small part of the UK’s digital dividend which is the spectrum that will be freed-up as a result of digital TV switchover.

The licence will allow Channel M to provide new digital terrestrial television services targeted at the Manchester area.