North Lanarkshire Council is planning to reduce its annual photography budget commissioning freelancers by £71,000.

The move is part of a wider initiative by the authority to cut costs by £15m in the coming year, reports wishawww.co.uk.

The actual photography reduction could be even greater as the £71,000 refers only to jobs booked through its corporate comms department.

The paper says that at present the council books between five and 14 freelance photography jobs a week and is planning to recruit its own full-time snapper paid between £21,678 and £26,331 per year.

Coventry University is hosting a half-day conference on the media’s reporting of the war in Afghanistan later this month.

The event, called ‘Afghanistan: Are we embedding too much truth?’, will be chaired by Kevin Marsh, editor of the BBC College of Journalism.

There will be contributions from journalists, foreign correspondents and academics on 18 March.

The event is part of the institute’s Coventry Conversations series. It starts at 1pm and entry is free – for details visit coventry.ac.uk.

Crain’s Manchester Business has recruited appointed former Lancashire Telegraph reporter Samrana Hussain to its team.

She will be covering media, creative industries, advertising, further education and green news for the business weekly.

While with the Telegraph, Samrana was named trainee reporter of the year 2008 by its parent company Newsquest and has also wored at ITV Granada.

Lord Stephen Carter, the man responsible for last summer’s Digital Britain report, is joining telecommunications firm Alcatel.

He will be the firm’s new director of marketing, strategy and communications based in Paris.

Lord Carter has previously worked for Ofcom as its chief executive and financial PR firm Brunswick.

The Newspaper Society met with shadow minister for culture Ed Vaizey to discuss issues facing the local media industry.

Items such as council newspapers, government advertising and cross media ownership regulations were discussed at the meeting.