The Right to Work campaign will be holding a conference on the 30 January in Manchester to organise resistance to job cuts. So far more than 50 union branches are backing it and more than 500 people have registered to attend.

Speakers include Mark Serworka (PCS), Sally Hunt (UCU), Jerry Hicks (Unite) and the NUJ’s own Jeremy Dear. There are plenty of other speakers and workshops.

Workers, students and unemployed are encouraged to attend

Full details of registration and the day itself, plus local transport are  here http://sites.google.com/site/righttoworkconference

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favour of journalist Pennie Quinton and Kevin Gillen who were stopped and searched under anti-terror legislation and prevented filming at an arms fair.

Judges ruled that police powers to stop and search without grounds for suspicion contravened section 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights

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Last year, the BBC’s Newsbeat programme interviewed two “ordinary” members of the BNP and gave them anonymity. It transpired that rather than being just any old members, the two were leading lights. The BBC has now admitted that it broke its own code in not reporting who the two were and that their views should have been challenged more. Press Gazette has the story

Missed this the first time. But Newsnight’s Paul Mason blogs movingly about Contract Journal, the magazine where he started his journalistic career. Contract Journal was closed last November after more than a 100 years of printing.

A story that could be told about many magazines

Last month saw many a retrospective on how the noughties had changed the media, entertainment and news. Some of it quite unexpected – who would have predicted social networking and twitter as media tools; then there were the more predictable parts such as decline of journalistic standards and the onward march of multinational control.

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Staff at the Telegraph returned after Christmas with an extra present – a pay rise and bonus won by the NUJ. Staff received a £500 bonus and a 1.5 per cent pay rise. Full story here

Meanwhile at the BBC, the NUJ branch has secured pay rises for six members of staff who had been historically underpaid for the jobs. The victory may lead to more cases of staff who are acting up or underpaid for their job winning pay rises. More here

The Southport ADM has given the NUJ a strong platform to build a sustained campaign for action to resist a further assault on jobs, pay and the conditions under which we have to work. Here, Alan Gibson gives the highs and the lows of the conference and identifies some of the key issues in the coming year.

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The NUJ Left will be at ADM. On the Thursday night we will be holding a public meeting at 6pm – 7.30pm, Southport Theatre and Convention Centre,
The Promenade, PR9 0DZ. So please come along to find out what we are about.

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We here at the NUJ Left would like to congratulate Christine Buckley for winning the election for the post of editor of the NUJ magazine The Journalist. We wish Christine every success in the role and hope to work with her in the future to make The Journalist the best union magazine in the country.

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As a result of all the publicity during the Journalist election campaign we have had hundreds of extra vistors to our website.

So we have decided to hold a NUJ Left get-together on the evening of the election count.

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