A bid to raise £1m to build a new cancer support centre has been launched by a regional daily.

The Yorkshire Evening Post has set up its Million for Maggie’s campaign with the aim of providing funding for a new centre at Leeds St James’s Hospital.

The YEP has joined forces with the Maggie’s charity, which runs 19 cancer centres across the UK, online and abroad.

Plans for the unique £5m centre, pictured below, designed by architects behind the 2012 Olympic Stadium, have been approved but a fifth of the total cost is hoped to be gathered through fundraising.

An editorial in the YEP reads: “If ever a charity deserved your support, it’s this one. Maggie’s aims to offer groundbreaking support for cancer sufferers in Leeds.

“We can’t do it on our own: we need the support of the people of Leeds and West Yorkshire. If cancer has touched your life, then we know we can count on your support.”

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A journalism trainer and media law consultant has written a new book on online media law.

Online Law for Journalists has been released by Cleland Thom as a guide to the legal and regulatory codes that affect journalists working online and on social media.

It is also suitable for bloggers, PRs, webeditors and anyone who publishes on the internet.

The book, available in print and on Kindle, is practical and up-to-date, and includes sections on message boards, security, hyperlinks, the right to be forgotten, and online abuse. It also covers defamation, contempt of court, copyright, privacy and data protection, and features 40 case studies.

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A former regional daily deputy editor who now writes on property for its sister newspaper has published a collection of short stories.

Brian Page’s Somewhere Up North features tales of reformed street brawler, a young man failing a job interview and homeless people eating Christmas dinner, among others.

Brian, left, who has spent 30 years working in journalism, is a former Northern Echo reporter, award-winning feature writer and deputy editor.

Now a freelance, he writes for the property pages of the Echo’s sister daily The Press, in York.

Somewhere Up North features a total of 17 stories and follows on from Still Lives, the novel he self-published in 2008.

The book is available from Amazon priced £5.99 paperback or £2.99 ebook.

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A university is to offer a bursary for six journalism students which will almost cut their course fees in half.

Wrexham Glyndwr University has announced the bursary for its one-year journalism course, which it has run for the past for eight years and is accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

The standard university fee for the course is £4,500 but the university is offering a bursary of £1,900 to help up to six students complete the programme.

The course was founded in partnership with NWN Media, which owns Wrexham-based daily The Leader as well as weekly titles in Shropshire, North and Mid Wales and Cheshire.

Course leader Janet Jones, pictured above left, said: “Those wanting a career in journalism need the National Council for the Training of Journalists qualifications and stacks of work experience. But it can be very expensive for young people to achieve both of those.

“We want to make sure, through the bursaries, that that package is within the reach of all potential journalists from all backgrounds.”

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A regional journalist who went on to Fleet Street before becoming a press adviser to a former Prime Minister has published his autobiography.

Keith McDowall’s book Before Spin tells the story of his exciting wartime childhood before embarking on a career in journalism, later becoming a close adviser to Labour and Tory Cabinet Ministers.

He reveals his toughest roles as close advisers to both James Callaghan and then William Whitelaw in the stressful period of direct rule in Ulster, before telling the inside story of how the then Northern Ireland Secretary confronted the breakdown in secret negotiations with the IRA.

Keith, pictured left, also worked with Cabinet Ministers as diverse as Roy Mason, Peter Walker, Reginald Maudling, Michael Foot, junior ministers and senior civil servants.

He began his career on the South London Observer before moving to the South London Press.

In 1955 he took a reporter job with the Daily Mail, and went on to become the newspaper’s industrial editor.