Off the record
The Scottish Press awards were a slightly more subdued affair this week.
The usual banter between the Daily Record and the Sun curtailed by the fact that no-one from the Record was there.
Journalists from the Record and its sister paper, The Sunday Mail, boycotted the event ahead of a three-day strike over jobs cuts.
Meanwhile, senior management weren't there either, as they were preparing to put the papers together in the journalists' absence.
The Record picked up three awards for Journalist Team of the Year for their coverage of the Angelika Kluk murder case, News Photographer of the Year for Tony Nicoletti and Multi-media Journalist of the Year.
The Sunday Mail won another for Reporter of the Year (for a second year running for Charles Lavery) - hopefully all delivered in time for them to hold them aloft on the picket line this weekend.
But the Sun table did some solo celebrating after picking up Newspaper of the Year, Sports News Writer of the Year, Front Page of the Year and Columnist of the Year (for Bill Leckie).
A good night for Scotland on Sunday writer Peter Ross (who won Newspaper Feature Writer of the Year and Magazine Writer of the Year) and Bill Jamieson of the Scotsman who won Financial Journalist of the Year and Journalist of the Year - one of six for his paper.
Like several speakers, he urged journalists to stay strong in the face of the worst industry crisis since Wapping.
"Words are our gift that will see us through this storm and through other storms," he said.
It did little to lift the mood of the room - well aware that this is an industry in rapid decline.
Sports journalist Doug Gillon - who has seen off 14 editors in his 30 years at the Herald - used his speech accepting a Lifetime Achievement award to encourage better training of younger journalists.
He said: "I'm certain we'll adapt successfully to the digital and online era. I'm less confident that the staff-cutting, rife throughout the industry will promote the kind of training and mentoring which I was fortunate to receive.
"So if may use this platform to urge anything, it's to encourage a culture which helps nurture and encourage young journalists. It remains critical for all of our futures."
A case in point - the recipient of Young Journalist of the Year, Mike Farrell - who works for my old paper the Dumbarton and Vale of Leven Reporter.
His coverage of the C.difficile outbreak in the Vale of Leven Hospital won him the award and a few nods of approval from his peers.
The paper is now based in Clydebank - and employs just a fraction of the staff it once did - but at least it's still there as a vital training ground for young journalists.
Whether the traditional career path through regional and national papers still exists in the future, is another matter entirely.
Not London’s South Bank, but the south bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow - every bit as lively in cultural terms as its namesake. I’m Pauline McLean, Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Scotland’s arts correspondent, and I’ll be blogging here about arts events and issues happening across the country.
Comment number 1.
At 24th Apr 2009, dubbieside wrote:Much ado about nothing. The dead tree press in Scotland, if not dying, is on its last legs.
The Scotland On Sunday awards are a joke, about one award for each reader.
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Comment number 2.
At 27th Apr 2009, newsjock wrote:Such events seem to be self-perpetuating, and as insignificant as Dubbieside #1 suggests.
No doubt it is all to do with the old boy/girl network of backscratching and apparent adulation.
To look on the bright side, there will not be many more of these events. Half the papers will go to the wall in the next 5 years, and the rump will be owned by one syndicate.
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