Your Noon Briefing: General Election TV debates, The Pavement, etc

BEGAN Scotland on Sunday newspaper yesterday (here): “A public consultation is to be held by the BBC on the format of its planned television ­debates in the run-up to the General Election next May.

“The announcement came after Scotland’s First Minister-in-waiting, Nicola Sturgeon, called on broadcasters to reconsider plans that exclude the SNP from taking part in the debates.”

On Friday, the SNP posted a media release (here), that began: “Following recent polling showing a surge in support for the SNP and Labour’s vote in free-fall, deputy leader, Nicola Sturgeon, will today demand broadcasters think again on General Election debate proposals which would exclude the Scottish National Party.”

And the story was pursued in Saturday’s edition of The Herald – here.

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BEGINS the Sunday Herald: “Say comic books and the adventures of superheroes and humorous characters usually spring to mind.

“But now, a Beano and Dandy illustrator is using a comic format to tell the stories of the homeless in Scotland’s biggest city.

“The first episode of the cartoon series Heartbreak Hotel is published tomorrow in The Pavement, a monthly free magazine for the homeless across Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and the West Midlands.”

Read more, here.

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BEGINS The Drum media and marketing magazine, here: “In 2004, Joe Tree decided to tell his story one photo and one day at a time and started his own daily photo journal. As The Drum’s Cameron Clarke catches up with him ten years later, not only has he thousands of snapshots to show for it, his blog has grown to become global online photo-sharing community, Blipfoto.”

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AN annual competition celebrating the best of broadcasting, digital, etc media from the ‘Celtic’ nations and regions has extended its deadline for entries.

The Celtic Media Festival – which is taking place in Inverness between April 22 and 24 – had an initial deadline for entries of Friday.

But it has been extended until Wednesday.

The festival says the extension is “due to massive demand”.

Read more, here.

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A DEBATE at Westminster – about proposals to allow voters to sack MPs between General Elections – has reportedly seen praise lavished on the Dunfermline Press newspaper.

Reports the website, holdthefrontpage, the local MP for Dunfermline and West Fife, Thomas Docherty, is quoted, as as saying: “Only after a tenacious campaign by the Dunfermline Press newspaper did [former MSP, Bill] Walker bow to public pressure and resign.”

Read more, here.

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THE Guardian’s media commentator, Roy Greenslade, says he’s ‘altogether less exercised’ than some about ‘The Vow’ – printed on the front page of the Daily Record a couple of days ahead of the referendum, on September 18, on Scots independence.

There was speculation online as to what extent the vow of further devolved powers for Scotland – by the leaders of the main Unionist political parties – was an actual, physical document.

As noted here, on allmediascotland.com, it prompted the Daily Record editor to take to his paper’s Facebook page to assure the document had the backing of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband.

Read Greenslade’s article, here.

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BEGINS an anonymous post on The Guardian website, here: “You don’t need to work in the PR industry to know that we have an abominable reputation when it comes to telling the truth. Do we perpetuate our own slippery stereotype? It’s embarrassing but yes, probably.”

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ALSO begins The Guardian: “The BBC now has more staff outside London than in the capital for the first time following the relocation of more than 2,000 posts to Salford, finally reaching a target first set in 2004.”

Read more, here.

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THE Herald newspaper today reports that its business writer, Simon Bain, has been shortlisted in the Santander UK Financial Media Awards, to be presented a week on Wednesday.

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