NCTJ Awards for Excellence deadline extended

The deadline for entries to this year’s NCTJ Awards for Excellence sponsored by NFL UK has been extended by one week. NCTJ students and trainees now have until 5pm on Friday, 25 September to submit their entries.

The awards recognise and reward the best journalism students completing NCTJ-accredited courses and journalists with less than two years’ experience on the job. With quality training and high standards at the heart of the NCTJ, these awards highlight the achievements of individuals with promising journalism careers ahead of them.

The awards continue to be free to enter and all those shortlisted will be invited to a gala dinner in November.

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 September 2014 and August 2015.

There are two 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.

A new award, NCTJ apprentice of the year, has been created for 2015. NCTJ apprenticeship training providers and employers are invited to nominate individuals who were doing an NCTJ apprenticeship at any time between September 2014 and August 2015.

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 Durrant, David Kett, David Rowell, and Amanda Ball.

The shortlist is due to be published on 16 October and the winners will be presented at the NCTJ Journalism Skills Conference in Birmingham in November 2015.

The NCTJ website has full details of categories and guidance on how to enter. For further information visit the NCTJ website.