Archant to sponsor new NCTJ reporting award

A new award to recognise the top performing student in the NCTJ reporting exam is to be sponsored by Archant.

The Archant award for reporting will be presented to one outstanding student each academic year. The winner will be presented with a certificate and £250.

Joanne Butcher, NCTJ chief executive, said: “We are very pleased to announce the creation of a new award for our journalism students. Reporting is one of the core skills of the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism and the exam has proved to be one of the most rigorous and challenging for student reporters. To be the top performing candidate in this subject is a huge achievement and that person will now get the recognition they deserve thanks to the support from Archant.”

Archant chief executive, Adrian Jeakings, said: “We are delighted to be able to sponsor this new award as we recognise the vital importance of good reporting skills from well trained journalists in producing engaging, informative and accurate content for our newspapers, magazines, digital and broadcast media channels.”

The NCTJ’s syllabus for reporting covers multi-platform reporting for newspapers, magazines, online, television and radio journalism. This includes a practical understanding of news, news gathering, effective interviewing, creating different types of news stories, different ways of consuming news, using interactivity, basic editing, and reporting safely.

Archant also sponsor an award for the best performing student in the videojournalism for online exam, the Mustard TV award for videojournalism. Mustard TV Ltd is the media group’s new broadcasting division, which was awarded a local TV licence in September 2012. Mustard will start broadcasting on Freeview, channel 8, from spring 2014.

There are now seven diploma awards presented annually for top performing candidates in court reporting, media law, public affairs, reporting, shorthand, sports journalism and videojournalism for online.