Two journalists achieve NCE for sports reporters

Picture: Dave King, NCTJ chief examiner in sports journalism

Two journalists have passed a brand new NCTJ qualification, the NCE for sports reporters, which was sat for the first time in March.

Three candidates sat the examination on Friday 5 March which was designed by the NCTJ in response to the growing number of trainee journalists who are joining sports desks sooner than in the past, many while still trainees.

Nicholas Banks, of the Express & Echo, Exeter, and Andrew Sloan of the Bristol Evening Post both passed the NCE for sports reporters.

Nicholas and David are not the first journalists to gain the qualification. David Pritchard of Kent on Sunday has this accolade. David sat the examination in September during its development stage and gave such an impressive performance he was awarded the qualification by the NCTJ.

Dave King, NCTJ chief examiner in sports journalism and editor of the Swindon Advertiser, has led the development of the new qualification. Dave was also previously sports editor of the Portsmouth News and Southern Daily Echo.

 Dave said: “The first sports NCE went successfully. It was the culmination of several years’ work. Now I hope more sports journalists will choose to take this path during their training.

“The basic principles of the traditional NCE have been retained, though clearly with a slant towards sport, applying the key disciplines which journalists will adopt during their training for a very relevant series of examinations.”

The introduction of the new qualification follows the successful launch of the preliminary examination in Sports Journalism in 2008.