News Associates trainees excel in NCTJ Diploma in Journalism awards

Four of the 12 highest-performing journalists in the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism exams in the 2022-23 academic year trained at News Associates.

Eve Bennett, Freya Gascoigne, Luke Power and Abbie Ingham each achieved the best results in court reporting, shorthand, sports journalism and journalism for a digital audience respectively.

A total of 11,658 diploma exams were sat throughout the academic year and the top-performing candidates each receive a cash prize of £250 from their respective award supporters.

Eve, who studied on a fast-track course in London and is now at TV producer at Sky News, won the National World media law court reporting award.

Eve was also named student of the year at the NCTJ Awards for Excellence 2023 for achieving the highest marks in the UK in her NCTJ in Diploma in Journalism exams in the 2022/23 academic year.

Eve said: “My time at News Associates gave me all the skills and knowledge I needed to make a start in the industry.

“It was intense and demanding – but also very rewarding – and I felt supported by the tutors throughout the course.

“I’d definitely recommend to anyone starting out in journalism!”

Freya, who also studied on a fast-track course in London and is now a politics editorial assistant at Sky News, achieved an impressive 100% accuracy in her 100 words-per-minute shorthand exam to claim the Sky Sports News shorthand award.

Luke, who studied on a sports journalism course in Manchester and is now a trainee sports reporter at the MailOnline, scored 78% in his sports journalism exam to take home the Premier League sports journalism award.

Luke said: “I’m grateful to have won this award. It’s credit to the great teaching at News Associates, particularly for this module by Manchester’s iconic sports tutor, Phil Wilkinson.

“The range of opportunities, talks, and exam preparation set us all up well. I’d also like to thank the Journalism Diversity Fund and the Football Writers’ Association for funding my NCTJ in the first place.

“Lots of the skills I picked up are useful every day on the job.”

Abbie, who trained on a sports journalism course in London and is now freelancing at the FA, achieved the highest mark in the journalism for a digital audience module, to win the Reach award.

Abbie said: “I am delighted to have won the Reach journalism for a digital audience award. A big thank you to News Associates for all their support during my exams.”

News Associates editorial development director Lucy Dyer said: “It’s always great to see our trainees’ hard work recognised, especially when they’re also already smashing it in the industry.

“I’m pleased to see News Associates trainees across a variety of courses win awards across a real mix of modules – court reporting, sports journalism, shorthand and journalism for a digital audience.

“And I’m especially proud to say that News Associates-trained journalists won four diploma awards out of the seven modules listed that we examined in the 2022-23 academic year.”