The National Council for the Training of Journalists has set up a new board to develop its strategy and standards for accrediting pre-entry journalism courses.

It will be chaired by Chris Elliott, managing editor of Guardian News and Media and also an NCTJ director.

The new accreditation board will be cross-media and take over the role previously performed by the NCTJ’s board of directors of scrutinising recommendations made to it by the accreditation panel. It will meet three times a year.

Award scheme ‘The Maggies’ – which celebrates the best magazine covers of the past 12 months – is open for entries.

The Maggies is voted for by the public online at themaggies.co.uk.

The nominated covers submitted for the awards, which are open exclusively to UK print magazines, will be shortlisted by a judging panel made up of industry heavyweights.

This list will then be put to a public vote in May to award the main cover of the year prize and individual category winners which will be announced in June.

Categories include: celebrity and entertainment, fashion, lifestyle, business and free magazines.

Gift vouchers to the iSUBSCRiBE service will be offered to those that vote. Last year’s overall winner was a GQ magazine covering featuring singer Lily Allen and two black panthers.

Visitors to the National Media Museum dropped by 18pc during 2009 compared to the previous year.

This was despite an overall rise of 10.9pc in visitors to UK tourist attractions, reports amateurphotographer.co.uk.

The museum in Bradford welcomed 613,923 visitors during last year.

The National Media Museum hosts exhibitions covering photography, film, television and the internet.

eveningtimes.co.uk, the companion website to Newsquest’s Glasgow-based daily the Evening Times, is sporting a fresh new-look.

The homepage features large images accompanying the main news stories with top headlines from news, sports, features and what’s on.

Transport secretary Lord Andrew Adonis addressed members of the Newspaper Conference at a briefing session at the Department for Transport.

Speaking exclusively to conference members, he spoke about the future of high speed rail in the UK before taking questions on transport issues from journalists.

Chaired by the Press Association’s Sam Lister, the Newspaper Conference is made up of regional press journalists based in Westminster who report for regional press titles across the UK.