2017 NCTJ Awards for Excellence open for entries
The NCTJ Awards for Excellence are open for entries from students and trainee journalists across the UK.
The NCTJ Awards for Excellence are open for entries from students and trainee journalists across the UK.
The awards recognise and reward the best journalism students completing NCTJ courses and journalists with less than two years' experience in the industry. The awards are also open to those studying the Diploma in Journalism by distance learning and the trainee category will include those with less than two years’ employment in any sector of journalism who have completed the Diploma in Journalism.
The awards continue to be free to enter and winners will be invited to the Journalism Skills Conference gala dinner and awards ceremony in November as guests of the NCTJ.
The categories for students and trainees are:
• news journalism
• sports journalism
• top scoop/exclusive
• features of the year
• multimedia story/campaign of the year
There is a student project of the year category for NCTJ-accredited course providers to submit a student project (newspaper, magazine, website, or broadcast package) which has been produced between 1 September 2016 and 31 August 2017.
There are three performance awards: the student journalist of the year, awarded to the best-performing student based on preliminary exam results and references, and trainee journalist of the year, awarded to the best-performing trainee in the National Qualification in Journalism (NQJ). There is no call for entries for these two awards, as they are based on exam results.
The third performance award is the NCTJ apprentice of the year and was created in 2015. NCTJ apprenticeship training providers and employers are invited to nominate individuals who were doing an NCTJ apprenticeship at any time between 1 September 2016 and 31 August 2017.
Finally, nominations are welcome for the NCTJ chairman's award, which recognises an individual’s outstanding contribution to high standards of journalism training. Nominations are invited, in no more than 500 words, on why the individual is worthy of this award. He or she could be an editor, a tutor or anyone who has made a meaningful impact on the training of journalists. Recent recipients have included Paul Jones, Sue Green, Paul Durrant, David Kett, David Rowell and Amanda Ball.
Joanne Butcher, NCTJ chief executive, said: “Our awards continue to highlight the outstanding new journalism talent coming into all sectors of the media and working in a wide range of journalism roles. The awards continue to be free to enter and everyone on the shortlist is welcome to attend the awards ceremony as guests of the NCTJ and our supporters.”
Students and trainees can enter via the student login section of the NCTJ website and all submissions are free of charge. Work entered must have been produced during the period 1 September 2016 and 31 August 2017.
All entries should be submitted before the closing date on Friday, 15 September 2017 at 5pm. Full details of submission guidelines and competition rules are available on our website here.
