Your Noon Briefing: Free places for upcoming talent at TV festival, P&J highly commended in media awards, etc

THIRTY free places at this year’s Edinburgh International Television Festival are up for grabs, for people relatively new to the TV industry.

Say the organisers of the festival – about its Ones to Watch talent scheme (formerly known as Fast Track and TV25): “Ones to Watch selects 30 talented rising stars to attend the Festival in August for free. They will learn from the best of the TV industry with their own bespoke programme of events and masterclasses.

“In 2013, Ones to Watch delegates enjoyed their own intimate audience with Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad and Charlotte Moore, Controller of BBC One.

“Applicants will have three-to-five years’ experience and will be looking to take the next step in their career.”

The deadline for applications is the 27th of this month. For more information, click here.

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A NEW media for a new Scotland? It’s a challenge that columnist, Joyce McMillan, has set herself to answer at a conference about the media – taking place in Edinburgh at the end of the month.

The conference – being hosted by The Scotsman, for whom McMillan writes – has today announced its full programme, featuring several very well-known Scots plus Jeff Moriarty, formerly of The New York Times and Boston Globe and now chief digital and product officer at Johnston Press.

For more details, click here.

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THE Glasgow book festival, Aye Write!, kicks off today, and this evening there is to be a session on reporting the Commonwealth Games.

Chaired by veteran broadcaster and Herald newspaper contributor, Archie Macpherson, the panellists are Herald writers, Susan Egelstaff, Kevin Ferrie, Doug Gillon and Hugh MacDonald.

For more details, click here.

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CONGRATULATIONS to The Press and Journal newspaper, given a highly commended prize in awards celebrating ‘the best in print and digital news media production and innovation’.

The Aberdeen-based newspaper finished runner-up behind the Irish News in the category, Regional Newspaper of the Year (over 25,000 circulation), in the 2014 Newspapers Awards.

The Sunday Herald, meanwhile, was commended in two categories: Weekend Newspaper of the Year and also Newspaper App of the Year.

Read more, here.

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READERS of the Mail on Sunday newspaper are this weekend to receive a free, sample copy of The Beano comic.

Says the Beano publisher, here, DC Thomson: “The Beano has created a special issue that will appear as a free sampler with The Mail on Sunday on 6th April 2014. The sampler will also be available as a digital edition for Mail Plus subscribers.”

And DC Thomson quotes its marketing manager, Cathy Frossard, as saying: “This is the first time we’ve sampled The Beano as widely as this and it’s great to be doing so with such a prominent national title. The Mail on Sunday will open The Beano up to a wide-ranging audience and we’re hoping that, with over 1.5 million copies of The Beano going out with the title, we’ll reach new readers.”

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A TWO-day conference about investigative journalism is taking place in Scotland during November, featuring several well-known Scots journalists.

Being held at the Edinburgh-based Scottish Media Academy run by Bauer Media, the event is being organised by freelancer, Billy Briggs.

Scheduled to take part are, among others, the Sunday Herald’s Paul Hutcheon and Firecrest Films’ Nicole Kleeman.

For more information, email here.

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BEGINS an article in The Guardian: “Two years after an industry campaign was launched to increase the number of women heard on television and radio, male experts still outnumber female experts on the main news programmes by a ratio of four to one.”

Read more, here.

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AND more from The Guardian, this time from Scots correspondent, Severin Carrell, who writes: “BSkyB has told its thousands of staff in Scotland it has no plans to intervene in the Scottish independence debate and intends to stay in the country regardless of the outcome of September’s referendum.”

Carrell adds: “Sky is one of Scotland’s largest private sector employers, with several of its largest customer service centres in sites such as Livingston. The company employs 6,400 staff directly and another 1,600 through its contractors.

“Scotland is also one of the satellite broadcaster’s largest markets, with products in one million homes, roughly 40 per cent of the overall number of homes in Scotland.”

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ARE you a freelancer – journalist, photographer, PR person, etc – and looking to work alongside fellow media practitioners in a media hub offering hot-desking facilities?

Well, there’s a possibility of such a hub being set up in Edinburgh, a mix of media cafe and speaker space, hot-desking and meeting rooms plus offices for several folk.

It’s at the market research stage, so if you have even a slight interest, feel to register it here.

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THE Scotland national women’s football team is playing in a World Cup qualifier tomorrow, and the whole match is being broadcast, live, on BBC ALBA – as announced here, in a media release posted on allmediascotland.com.

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A NEW PR agency has been set up, by David Sawyer, most recently the head of the Glasgow office of Weber Shandwick.

In an announcement issued today, Sawyer says – of Zude PR – he is seeking to offer ‘peace of mind PR’.

He joined Weber Shandwick 13 years ago.

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SEEN anything you think readers of www.allmediascotland.com should be made aware of? Then just send the weblink to info@allmediascotland.com and we’ll do the rest. All suggestions gratefully received. We’re back at noon on Monday.

PS Your Noon Briefing is a relatively new venture for allmediascotland.com. We are no longer going to report news, story-by-story. Instead, we are going to find content we hope will be useful, in the belief it will prove to be a more comprehensive service.