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Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

Video added to NCE test for photographers

By Dominic Ponsford

The National Council for the Training of Journalists is adding a video test to its senior journalism exam for photographers.

The group said the move was a response to the growing use of video on regional newspaper websites.

Five regional press photographers who had already taken their senior journalist exam, or NCE, also took part in a trial video journalism NCE test last month.

Candidates were asked to illustrate a story on the rising cost of fuel by shooting a video for a newspaper website.

The video package had to be between three and five minutes long and include at least one interview with audio recorded to a professional standard.

NCTJ chief examiner for photography Steve Phillips said: “Four of the five candidates passed the video exam, producing a good standard of work which would grace any newspaper website.

“The board believes it is vital for press photographers and photojournalists to be able to shoot video in a creative way for the web.

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‘Videos must be much more than talking heads to compete with the rest of the media and photographers who already have high visual skills are ideally placed to produce high quality footage for their publications.”

Ten photographers sat the November press photography NCE test – and only two passed.

They were Wesley Webster from The Sentinel in Stoke and Katie Lunn from the Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph.

Webster won the South Wales Argus award for the best advance project. Daniel Martino of The Gloucestershire Echo won the Fuji award for the best portfolio and the Nikon award for best single image (pictured).

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