Your Noon Briefing: Donald Cowey, Ian Wood, etc

HAPPY New Year and welcome to another year of Noon Briefings on allmediascotland.com, providing a handy, quick catch-up on what’s happening across the whole of the Scottish media scene.

And if you are looking for a New Year resolution to keep to, the site would not be as successful as it is without several key folk pointing out stories they think should be shared among allmediascotland.com readers.

That’s digital stories as much as newspaper ones, radio stories as much as public relations ones, magazine stories as much as marketing ones, broadcasting stories as much as advertising ones.

So, why not join our happy throng, emailing website and social media links to here, for allmediascotland.com to consider adding to its Noon Briefing roster?

In anticipation, welcome aboard.

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AND what you may have missed during the Festive Period…

THE sports editor of The Herald has brought over 13 years in the post to a close.

Donald Cowey has taken voluntary redundancy. When allmediascotland.com contacted him, he had nothing specifically lined up, to go to.

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BUT the Festive Period also saw the passing of Ian Wood, a former sports editor at The Scotsman and a celebrated golf writer with the paper too. He was aged 80.

Much of his best writing included his columns, ‘The Last Word’ and ‘A Slice of Life’.

Read more, here.

Among the tributes is an obituary, penned here by Martin Hannan, who writes “for The ­Scotsman at least, a golden age of sports journalism is ­indeed over”.

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BEGAN a media release on allmediascotland.com, posted by The BIG Partnership: “Scotland’s largest PR and digital marketing agency is planning for a period of growth after making two strategic appointments designed to meet rising demand for digital services.

“The BIG Partnership has appointed Jessica McAndrew as digital account director, based at the company’s Glasgow headquarters.”

Read more, here.

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REPORTS The Herald: “Newspaper, magazine and book publisher, DC Thomson, has reported a rise in annual pre-tax profits from £23.7 million to £24.9m in spite of a fall in revenue.

“Accounts filed with Companies House show the Dundee-based company, which publishes titles including The Sunday Post, Press and Journal, and People’s Friend, made revenues of nearly £240m in the year to March 31. This was down from £252m in the prior financial year.”

Read more, here.

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NEARLY 3,000 complaints against newspapers were received during its first three months in operation, by the new Press regulator, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), with the Edinburgh Evening News having an accuracy complaint upheld against it and The Press and Journal having also an accuracy complaint partly upheld about it.

Read more about the 3,000 complaints, here.

And read more about the rulings involving the Edinburgh Evening News and The Press and Journal, here (with the latter newspaper given an instruction as to where to publishing its apology: “on page three or further forward, in the newspaper”.

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YESTERDAY’S Sunday Herald included an interview with Jamie Coleman, the founder of a digital media hub – for ‘young and innovative software companies’ – in Edinburgh, CodeBase.

Remember that media hub idea proposed by allmediascotland about a year ago? This is it, made flesh, in the digital sector.

Read more, here.

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BEGAN radiotoday.co.uk: “Adele Cunningham will be the co-host of the brand new Heart Scotland Breakfast show with Robin Galloway from January.

“Adele replaces Cat Harvey who has left the station after 12 years on-air. Cat’s former co-presenter, Ewen Cameron, also left the station in October.”

Read more, here.

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BEGAN BT Scotland director, Brendan Dick, in Scotland on Sunday: “With the number of Scottish households and businesses able to get high-speed fibre broadband growing by 10,000 a week during 2014, Scotland’s digital journey has taken some huge steps forward, but there is still much to be done during 2015.”

Read more, here.

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AND the Sunday Herald’s Colin Donald begins: “An ambitious plan to tackle Scotland’s chronic problem of digitally excluded citizens is set to make ‘real progress’ in 2015, according to the man charged with helping to boost the country’s economic performance by getting its most disadvantaged communities online.

“In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Chris Yiu, director of digital participation at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), outlined the progress so far in formulating a raft of initiatives designed to tackle an area in which Scotland lags the rest of the UK.”

Read more, here.

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DEALINGS with the media and public relations’ lobbying appear to have been major agenda items at the very first meeting of the Scottish Executive (now Government) cabinet meeting, in 1999 – as reported, here, by STV and here, by The Scotsman.

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THE Scotsman carries an obituary – here – about Jim MacRitchie who, among other things, had been a long-serving rowing correspondent for the paper. There’s an obituary too in The Herald – today’s edition, here.

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BEGINS the BBC, in an announcement: “The BBC will be striking the right chord with fans of traditional and contemporary folk at the 2015 Celtic Connections in Glasgow. Under its BBC Music banner, the broadcaster is featuring more artists and performances than ever before from the UK’s biggest winter festival of folk music.

“Coverage will be across the BBC on radio, television, iPlayer and online at bbc.co.uk/celticconnections throughout the festival from January 16.”

Read more, here.

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FORMER BBC Scotland sports presenter, Alison Walker, is profiled in The Scotsman, following a year of professional highs but personal challenges (her parents both being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease).

Read more, here.

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A FRONT page from The Scotsman newspaper and another from The Press and Journal have been named among the ‘best’ ten front pages from the ‘regional press’ last year.

The Scotsman’s front page followed the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, in Glasgow, while its counterpart from The Press and Journal was in the wake of the referendum result on Scots independence.

The listing was compiled by the website, holdthefrontpage.co.uk, here.

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THERE are a couple of Scots nominations in this year’s Hospital Radio Awards – as reported, here, by the website, radiotoday.co.uk.

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BEGINS the website, techcrunch.com: “Polaroid’s attempt to re-establish its brand in the age of digital photos continues with the announcement that it has partnered with Edinburgh-based photo journaling service, Blipfoto, which is now relaunching and expanding into the U.S. The service, available on the web and in mobile apps for iOS and Android, offers users a place to document their lives by sharing only one photo per day.”

Read more, here.

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“INCREASED costs” are being cited as the main reason for a 10p increase – starting today – in the price of The Herald. Says the paper, on page two, its last price rise was in August two years ago.

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BROADCASTING regulators, Ofcom, is holding a series of public meetings across the UK to “hear people’s views on its draft Annual Plan for 2015/16″.

The Scotland one is scheduled for the 29th of this month.

Read more, here.

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