NCTJ fast-track centre News Associates London won four trainee and student prizes at the NCTJ Awards for Excellence in Nottingham last night.
Jennifer Morris and Adam Knight, who both completed four-month courses in London this July, claimed the Student Features Award and Top Scoop/Exclusive Award respectively.
News International executive Graham Dudman, one of the judges, described Knight’s sports betting exclusive as a “cracking revelatory story”, while Jayne Savva, features editor of Best Magazine, praised Morris on her ability to “balance her cheeky irreverent style with enough poignancy to tug on the heartstrings”.
Croydon Advertiser reporter David Churchill claimed the Trainee News Journalism award and Hardeep Matharu, of the Epsom Guardian, who won the Trainee Features prize.
Elsewhere, from the University of Sunderland, MA course student Christopher Hoy scooped this year’s Student Journalist of the Year prize. Joe Cooper, who went to Leeds Trinity, claimed the prize for Student News Journalism.
The other two student awards went to David Lyons, of Glasgow Caledonian University, who won the Student Sports Journalism Award, and Joel Goodman, of Sheffield College, who won the Image award.
In the trainee awards, the Hartlepool Mail’s reporter Dominic Shaw won the Top Scoop/ Exclusive award while the trainee Image award went to the Derby Telegraph’s Alex Cantrill-Jones.
The NCTJ Reporter of the Year award went to Hannah Upton of The Westmoreland Gazette, after passing the NCE earlier this year with the highest marks in the country.
Upton, who studied her NCTJ at the University of Central Lancashire, said: “Despite the pain of exam day and the months of preparation beforehand, to me the NCE is a must. I think the NCTJ's training programme provides a solid foundation for a career in journalism.”
The final prize of the night went to De Monfort University, which won Student Publication of the Year for its magazine Royal Visit, which chronicled the Queen’s visit during her Diamond Jubilee year.
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