Edinburgh Napier News Day
November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Edinburgh Napier journalism students are gearing up
for a packed afternoon of news reporting from around Edinburgh.
Student Journalists Poised for action
View stories here from 1pm.
Follow us on twitter via #napiernews @napiernewsday
The changing face of news
February 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
by Patrick McPartlin
According to Henry Jenkins’ book Convergence Culture, we are experiencing constantly reforming modes of communication and media content, which are “changing the way we create, consume, learn and interact with each other.” [Read more...]
New lit mag to hit streets
November 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The University of Edinburgh will release a new publication tomorrow, which gives budding authors, poets and playwrights an platform to publish their work.
As part of the society of the same name, PublishED will be produced semesterly and distributed free around the Edinburgh University George Square campus. Containing prose, poetry, drama and interviews with authors, the magazine aims to provide a way in to the publishing industry for fledgling writers. The first issue, containing interviews with, Australian poet Les Murray and Edinburgh writers Iain Banks and Alexander McCall Smith, will be unveiled tomorrow.
The project started in May this year and Editor-in-Chief Matt Oldfield believes the magazine will be an important tool for young writers: “We started up because we got tired of waiting for other people to start a literary magazine. Since May we have been slowly building up the project, but it took awhile for things to really start moving. Its a publication with the aim of showcasing the best literary work. We also aim to provide a valuable insight and pathway into the publishing industry.”
Interviewed in the first issue: Alexander McCall Smith (Photo by Lärarnas Nyheter)
PublishED also intend to hold events throughout the year to raise both awareness and funds for the magazine, which is entirely self funded. Ahead of its official launch party, at Edinburgh’s Blackwell bookstore tonight, Oldfield said they “have so far raised over £700 through various fundraising events including book sales, bake sales, quiz nights, variety nights and ghost story nights.”
Edinburgh is well known for its rich cultural and literary heritage, and is home to some of the world’s best known writers. Some of its most celebrated poets, including Don Paterson, John Burnside and Kathleen Jamie, will perform at this year’s Hogmanay celebrations and PublishED hopes to offer luminaries a chance to achieve the same level of success.
The website already contains a collection of local writers’ work, and Edinburgh based poet Rebecca Ross is excited by the prospect of a magazine aimed at young, rather than established, writers: “Poetry and the arts in general is a notoriously difficult industry to get into, so the launch of a magazine which provides a potential pathway is very much welcomed.”
Ross added: “The real challenge for many poets is gaining a reputation. Once you have that, publications will approach you for work. It’s extremely important for publications like this to exist to help get over that first hurdle.”
Lanarkshire radio station L107 faces action
November 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment
by Adam Cromarty
One of Scotland’s smallest, yet most talked about radio stations faces strong action after a breaching the license they hold for North Lanarkshire.
L107 - A station in breach
Whilst L107 remains to hold a small audience reach, they have received much attention from those who live in the area to which it broadcasts and those work in the Scottish radio industry. This follows various changes in ownership, the alleged theft of its main transmitter and outrageous tag-lines such as ‘The one everyones listening to’ and ‘Scotland’s biggest and best radio station’.
During the past few years, the Lanarkshire licence has been rescued on many occasions by a variety of radio faces including ex Radio 1 DJ Mark Page and tartan ‘shock-jock’ Scottie McClue (aka Colin Lamont) who reportedly put up and lost £100’000 of his own money to fund the station. Most recently and following the suspension of Mr Lamont’s business partner Alan Shields, John Prendergast of Creative Media stepped in on the 22nd of February and is recognised the current owner of the license.
After a short spell of fruitful output, the focus soon shifted to the lack of local news. This is something all local stations must provide as a part of their licence agreement.
Following on from the change in control and acting upon complaints made, broadcasting watchdog Ofcom recently undertook a content sampling investigation. During the first three days in August, the regulatory body found that station delivers “far more locally produced content than is required by the format”. However, they also reported that they local news was “problematic” and whilst the station did run more bulletins than was required, the level of repetition was found to be unacceptable with the same bulletin being used 16 times. L107 was found to be in breach of license.
At the time of writing, L107 has been off-air for six days with listeners able to hear a back-up CD on one of the stations two frequencies and the other is simply broadcasting dead air.
Scottish Parliament launches competition for future journos
November 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment
by Junio Valerio Songa
The Chamber of the Scottish Parliament
Any aspiring journalist who would be interested in work experience at the Scottish Parliament can apply for a competition launched by Holyrood in collaboration with the Fife Free Press newspaper.
The week long placement will be accessible to Scottish final year and postgraduate journalism students, who will work alongside accomplished journalists in the Parliament’s Media Tower, filing copies on parliamentary business and covering the week’s hot topics.
Candidates can access the competition, which started the 28th of October, by submitting a 500 words essay on the topic “what do you see as the main achievements of the Scottish parliament to date?” The essays will be judged by a panel which includes Allan Crow, Editor at Fife Free Press, Katrine Bussey, Political Editor of the Scottish Press Association; Raymond Buchanan, BBC Reporter; and Annette McCann, Head of Media Affairs at The Scottish Parliament.
Presiding Officer Alex Ferguson MSP said about the competition:
“The Scottish Parliament is delighted to be launching this student placement competition for up and coming journalists. We are at the hub of political news in Scotland, therefore I can think of no better place for a student to learn their trade.”
All entries will have to be submitted to Media Relations Office, Q3.03, Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh EH99 1SP, the deadline for the admission is 3rd of December 2010.
Scientists take a step closer to creating Potter’s invisibility cloak
November 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment
by Neal Wallace
Harry Potter’s famous invisibility cloak may not be quite as far fetched as it seems, after scientists in the UK demonstrated a flexible film, which can make objects appear invisible.
The team, from the University of St. Andrews, demonstrated the film’s, called “Metaflex”, flexibility, by using a tiny amount on a contact lens, can . It works by interrupting and channeling the flow light, rendering objects invisible, much in the way an invisibility cloak might.
Scientist Andrea Di Falco, who wrote the paper concerning the material, said: “The first step is imagining first of all that this could be done. All the typical results have been reached in flat and rigid surfaces because this is the legacy of the procedures used to create nanostructures.”
This is not the first time flexible metamaterials have been made, with previous attempts only able to work for light with a much longer wavelength – a far redder colour – than humans can see. This is because metamaterials are easier to construct when they have relatively large structures, and so only work at the Terahertz and near-infrared ends of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Metaflex works in a similar way to water bending round a rock in a stream. Thanks to a composition of tiny nano-structures, it interacts with the light, causing it to bend around the object, rather than absorbing it.
Invisibility may soon be a reality (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros)
According to professor Ortwin Hess, at Imperial College London, the next step is to manipulate the material’s optical for use in options and cameras. He described the team’s success as a “huge step forward”.
Di Franco insists there is still a long way to go before people will be able to sneak around Hogwarts undetected: “So far he’s had to live in a house and now he can live in something like a tent; it’s not the cloak that adjusts to his shape, but it’s a bit more flexible. Now we have to take the next step forward.”
France strikes rides new wave
November 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment
by Tony Gougeon
France has been facing one of its most important strike waves this year after the recent announcement of a new pension reform made by President Nicolas Sarkozy at the end of the summer, wishing to push the legal retiring age from 60 to 62.
What seemed to be a usual striking opportunity for French people began to get out of control recently when petrol industries joined the movement, forcing the government to put drastic measures into place and restricting petrol supplies.
Now that the reform has been voted by Parliament, the government expects the situation to get back to normal as soon as possible, Jean Louis Borloo (minister of Ecology and Energy) announcing live on television last night that “95% of the petrol stations have been provided with fuel”. However, protests are still taking place everywhere in the country at high schools, universities, post offices and several other sectors, and people are still expected to be in the streets this Saturday.
Most petrol stations have been forced to shut for a few days, expecting to be delivered soon and encountering a loss of over 100 million euro for the main oil refinery Total, according to its financial director Patrick de la Chevardiere.
However, every time one of them can open again customers have to queue for hours, where they will only be able to purchase up to €21, or be told the station has run out of petrol already. The last weekend of October being a popular holiday for French people, petrol was still rare and the restrictions not lifted.
Some people claim it is still time to fight back: Henriette Minard, 72 and retired, is still calling for people to protest. “The pension reform was the spark the movement needed,” she says. “It is particularly unfair to the previous and next generations: people have been fighting and are still fighting to make their lives more enjoyable. The senate voting the reform last week is not a death sentence to the movement.”
On the other side, some people are starting to get tired of the process: Mai-anh Peterson, a British student sent from Edinburgh to study in Montpelier as part of the Erasmus exchange program says: “This is taking it too far. When it starts to affect people’s everyday lives in such a drastic manner it makes it hard to see what the point is. Retirement ages are increasing all over the world, France should it count itself lucky – it still has the lowest retirement age in Europe. If it’s not economically viable for the government to back down on its proposal, then all I can foresee is a complete standstill.”
Her university, along with numerous others across the country, have been forced to interrupt their normal agenda because students have been blocking access into the buildings, which is the answer students have used for decades now. However, with exams coming up, the movement is losing strength as more and more students are getting worried about their grades.
Transplantation anniversary
October 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Edinburgh is the place to be when you need a kidney transplant as 50 years ago the first ever transplant took place. So much has happened since then and yet there are still so many people waiting on that gift of life that will change them forever.
Since that first transplant, 45,000 people have had their lives radically changed due to the generosity of others. And yet so many are still waiting for that gift of life that they need.
Part of the major campaign to raise awareness
Stefan Kormylo, 33, is one of the lucky people to have received that gift. “It’s an amazing transformation between living on dialysis, waiting on that phone call that will change everything, living a life with fluid and dietary restrictions and spending so much time in hospital. To then go from all that to living a life which is relatively normal in the sense that I can do what I like, from cycling to walking the dog to drinking what I like and not having to think about the unknown phone call that you so desire when living a life on dialysis.”
The difference in lifestyles are at different ends of the spectrum, yet more and more people are waiting for a kidney as each year passes. Within the last year there has been a massive increase in the number of transplants, a record high of 1791 kidney transplants took place, the highest in 14 years. But there are still 8000 people in Scotland needing a new kidney.
Dr Caroline Whitworth, head consultant in Renal medicine at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary hospital feels that we have a long way to go. “We have seen a big difference in the way we care for patients in the last 20 years with the advances in technology helping to provide a better health service. But there is nothing, as yet, we can do to increase the number of transplants without the generosity and kindness of people donating organs. It is amazing to think that so many people, in their final moments, want to make sure their death has not been meaningless and they give the gift of life.”
So with the Scottish Government deciding, for the time being, not to change the law from an ‘opt in’ system to an ‘opt out’ one, there seems to be a real focus on educating the next generation on the importance of donating organs. With transplant co-ordinators going into schools giving presentations on the importance of organ donation, they hope to change the opinions of next of kin when available organs come up for donation. At the moment figures show that 40 percent of organs that could be used for transplantation are being refused by the next of kin due to lack of knowledge and not knowing that their loved ones wanted to give this gift of life.
However, if we see the same medical advances in the next 50 years as we have seen in the past then transplant waiting lists may be a thing of the past, thanks to stem-cell technology. Scientists have made a stem-cell kidney but as yet cannot seem to get it to work like a conventional one. Until then there is a great need for organs. If you wish to register to donate your organs go to: www.organdonationscotland.org
The final whistle on Scottish Football? An insight into the current furore
October 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment
By Christopher Hall
For years Scottish Football has had it’s issues, everyone knows that.
Sectarianism, racism and debt have all manifested themselves over the last few years within the match day terraces and streets of Scotland. Refereeing enquiries, while omnipresent, are usually taken no farther than the post-match summary from the irate gaffer.
However, the question looms nearer. Are the current refereeing scandals a genuine threat to the game and the final nail in an already watertight coffin?
Only time will tell.
The happenings within the SFA will either be lost within a plethoric archive of footballing news articles or there will be a genuine outcome to this long running saga which poses a real significant threat to our national game.
To simply understand the situation you would personally have to comb through an infinite amount of news articles and reports and still not establish a firm conclusion. On the one hand, you have the letters from Neil Lennon outlining his misgivings with decisions given against his Celtic side at Tannadice and more recently at Parkhead in the Old Firm derby. On the other side, there are officials such as Stephen Craven deciding to quit the game in bizarre circumstances after his involvement in a decision to overturn a penalty for the Glasgow team last week. There appears to be a smoke screen appearing within the game which wont be cleared until the SFA provide their official investigation and a proper conclusion is reached which will allow normal service to resume.
To the fair minded individual, it is obvious that referees are not hired on the basis of their religion, creed or race but by their ability to handle a football match in a manner which is fair and competent. Edinburgh Napier News looks at some major decisions in Scotland in the past five years which have added fuel to the flames within the Scottish football refereeing debate:
* Hearts fans are incensed after Defender Takis Fyssas is given a straight red after an alleged challenge on Celtic midfielder Shaun Maloney (Jan 2006)
* St Mirren are in the news as Gus Macpherson is threatened with a fine for criticising an assistant official in a cup match against Dundee United. (Feb 2007)
* Craig Levein is fined £5000 by the SFA after a post match outburst against former whistler Mike McCurry. Levein was outraged after a string of bizarre decisions which went against his team in a match against Rangers (May 2008)
* Rangers player Kyle Lafferty is fined by his club after deliberately feigning injury which resulted in a straight red card for Aberdeen defender Charlie Mulgrew. (May 2009)
* Stephen Craven and Dougie Macdonald are under fire after awarding Celtic a penalty against Dundee United before quickly overturning the decision to the shock of Celtic Manager Neil Lennon (October 2010)
If you think that you’ve got what it takes to become a referee in Scotland the why not follow this link…
BBC Journalists to Strike
October 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment
BBC journalists are to stage two 48-hour strikes in the coming weeks as the long running row over pensions rages on.
The National Union of Journalists said its members will walk out on November 5 and 6 and again on November 15 and 16, with further strike dates to be announced in the coming days, including the threat of a Christmas stoppage.
The move follows a 70% majority rejection by NUJ members of the BBC’s “final” offer on pensions. The union described the proposed changes as making journalists “pay more, work longer and receive lower pensions”.
The union makes up 17% of BBC staff, UK-wide, with 300 members in Scotland. They said its 4,000 members at the BBC will also refuse to take on additional duties or volunteer for acting-up duties as part of an indefinite work to rule.
The dispute flared after the BBC announced plans to cap pensionable pay from next April and revalue pensions at a lower level, which unions said effectively devalued pensions already earned. BBC management said the changes were needed to try to tackle a huge pension deficit of more than £1.5 billion.
Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival in August Mark Thompson told delegates: “We’re going through one of the most painful changes of all – confronting the fact that the current pension arrangements for people inside the organisation are simply no longer affordable.”
In what many commentators are predicting will be a winter of discontent, the strikes by BBC journalists could be the first in a long line of industry disputes. Firefighters are also threatening industrial action but it is yet to be seen if either of these groups will gain the level of public support being demonstrated on the streets of Paris, as Nicholas Sarkozy raises the age for the state pension.
