18-year-old wins job at Johnston Press subbing ‘hub’

An 18-year-old recently qualified NCTJ student has won a job at Sussex Newspapers subbing ‘hub’ in Horsham – the first job for which she’d applied.

Jasmin Martin will take up the post with the Johnston Press newspaper group after being appointed last week.

After leaving Portslade Community College with three A Levels in June last year, Martin took up a ten-week NCTJ course at Journalist Works in Brighton from which she graduated in December.

Peter Taylor, from Journalist Works, told Press Gazette: ‘Jasmin was the most improved student I have ever had.

‘Every week she got better and better, she’s a really fast learner. It just goes to show that you don’t need a degree to get a job in journalism.

‘With the price of degrees about to soar, I think we might find we get more bright students choosing to train here after A Levels. “

Martin will be joined at the Johnston Press production centres by James Connaughton, a graduate in English and Film from Sheffield Hallam University who also took the NCTJ course in Brighton.

Johnston Press outlined plans last month to create a new subbing centre in Horsham to handle the production of all its papers in the south of England – raising fears of job cuts and mammoth commutes for existing employees.

The regional publishing group said it proposed to create a divisional production centre for around 40 weekly and daily papers it produces across the south coast – including Portsmouth’s The News, the Hastings Observer and the Worthing Herald.

The new centre will come under the control of Johnston Press’s Sussex Newspapers division, and could result in a daily two-and-a-half hour, 100-mile round trip for those staff in Portsmouth wishing to transfer to work in Horsham.

Topics in this article : Johnston Press