Katherine Purvis's blog

This morning I woke up to a report on BBC Radio 4 describing how pensioners may soon be expected to prove a certain level of fitness in order to claim their pension. One suggestion was to install treadmills in post offices around the country - elderly people would have to walk for three or four minutes on the treadmill before they would be allowed to pick up their pension. 

Amnesty International is running a competiton in conjunction with the NUJ and the Daily Mirror for the Student Human Rights Reporter Award.

The competition is open to all students in the UK whose story has been published or broadcast in a recognised student publication or outlet between September 2011 and February 2012, and the deadline is March 1st. 

Click here for more information and to see last year's winning entry. 

Sky News is hosting an exhibition at Somerset House in London from January 12th titled 'Frontline: A Year of Journalism in Conflict'. 

It will look into The Arab Spring with a focus on revolution in Egypt, the Libyan conflict, and the London riots and will offer 'a unique insight into the editorial, political and human aspects of some of the most extraordinary events of our time'.  

http://skynews.skypressoffice.co.uk/press-releases/items/2011-12/2315/fr...

I'm sure most, if not all, of us have made a strong commitment to a career in Journalism but this may be worth keeping an eye on this afternoon - the Guardian are hosting a Live Q&A from 1pm with 'industry insight and advice from the experts'. 

There's a list of who's taking part in the Q&A at the end of this article. 

 http://careers.guardian.co.uk/journalism-competitive-sector 

Quite an interesting article about the nature of Journalism today - there is a list of all the Journalists who are known to have died this year while doing their job. It actually shocked me that there are so many. 

I'm not sure journalists should be thanked for the roles they play, but I think there is definitely an argument for recognising the risks they take and remembering those who have lost their lives in the fight for gathering and distributing information.

For any of you interested in Global Health issues, this competition may be of interest to you:

 http://blog.results.org.uk/2011/09/30/student-journalism-competition-delegation-to-south-africa/ 

For four years, the media have swarmed around the trials and appeals linked to the murder of Meredith Kercher, and at perhaps the most crucial moment to date - the verdict of the appeals of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito - several news organisations managed to get it completely wrong.