Inside a year on the arts front line: exclusives, impact and The Herald's clout |
As the clock struck 7pm in The Herald’s office in Glasgow city centre on Thursday there was a sudden buzz of excitement in the air.
As the contenders for The Herald Student Press Awards arrived upstairs, I was a bundle of nerves.
Presenting the inaugural Arts Writer of the Year prize was not just a big deal for the stand-out winner, Julia Braun Raven, from the Strathclyde Telegraph.
Scotland's leading Arts Correspondent joins The Herald
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The Herald announces winners of the Student Press Awards 2026
It was a huge honour for me. it also felt like the perfect way to round off my first year as The Herald’s Arts Correspondent.
Arts Writer of the Year winner Julia Braun Raven, from the Strathclyde Telegraph, with Arts Correspondent Brian Ferguson. (Image: GordonTerris/Herald&Times)
I’m not sure I slept much the night before I took a deep breath and walked through the doors of our Bath Street office just over 12 months ago.
Before I knew it, I was on a team working on a hugely ambitious project for The Herald.
The Future of Edinburgh series ran for five days in The Herald (Image: Damian Shields)
Our Future of Edinburgh series must have been the biggest journalistic deep-dive into Scotland’s capital city in modern times - if not ever.
More than 40 pieces of in-depth journalism were published over the course of five days, backed by a bold marketing campaign promoting The Herald’s expanding coverage of the Scottish capital.
Chloe Pirrie starred in the first series of the Edinburgh-set detective drama Dept Q. (Image: Netflix)
The slick video starring our Edinburgh-based journalists was impressive enough, but it was the adverts which appeared around the city and on Edinburgh’s iconic Lothian Buses service that got the city talking. It felt like the dawning of a new era in a city with centuries of publishing heritage.
The Future of Edinburgh – Find all articles in the series here
The Future of Scotland on Screen - all series stories here
Rising Tides: Scotland’s Island Music Festivals - our deep-dive series
My work on the series explored the staggering number of projects expected to transform the city’s cultural landscape in the coming years, the impact of the film and TV studio which has become home to the hit Netflix series Dept Q, the bizarre restrictions on pop and rock concerts in the city’s historic outdoor arena, and concerns that its world-leading festivals are at risk of “stagnation” without significant new investment.
Edinburgh’s festivals have been at the heart of The Herald’s arts coverage over the last year. From funding battles and campaigns to interviews with the main organisers and big-name performers, they have rarely been away from the front page of the paper or our website. Quite right too, given they are worth £400m to the Scottish economy and have a combined audience of........