NCTJ students make the news on election night

Picture: Journalism students Zenat Sabur and Meera Majithia of De Montfort University covering the election count in Market Harborough.

It was a long and adventurous night for students from NCTJ-accredited courses who put their multimedia news reporting skills into practice to cover the general election in print, broadcast and online.

Students from NCTJ-accredited courses at Leeds Trinity University College, De Montfort University, Staffordshire University, University of Sheffield, Cardiff University, City College Brighton and Hove, UCLan, Glasgow Caledonian University, Brighton Journalist Works, Highbury College, University of Kent, University of Salford and Up to Speed Journalism Training were all involved in reporting the general election.

Student Helen Patchett, of the accredited MA/PgDip in Journalism at Leeds Trinity University College carried out vox pops at a polling station in Pudsey for the Guardian Local website. Her bylined report can be read here.

Leeds Trinity University College students Samantha Gildea and David Hardiman were working with BBC Radio Leeds at the counts in Leeds and Bradford last night and early this morning and Juliette Bains was with Radio Yorkshire at a count in Leeds.

Course leader Susan Pape said students produced an election special edition of course newspaper, North Leeds News, and the students will be producing a results special in the next edition.

Eight constituency counts were covered by students studying the PG/Dip Journalism at the Leicester Centre for Journalism (LCJ) at De Montfort University.

The students were filing live copy through to a community media website. First copy went live on the Citizens’ Eye website at 5pm on Thursday and the final story was uploaded 14 hours later. To read their reports click here.

LCJ director and journalism lecturer John Dilley, who led the team, said: “They were absolutely fantastic. Their dedication and commitment was startling, especially when you consider some of the students didn’t get to bed until seven and then had a shorthand exam at 10.30am!”

John added: “The stories they filed were a mixture of facts, stats, reaction and quirky – the strangest had to be the female student who got some real off-the-cuff quotes in the ladies’ loo from the Labour candidate who went on to win her seat.”

Students on the accredited MA Journalism course at Staffordshire University worked through the night and into this morning covering counts at Stoke North, Stoke Central, Stoke South, Stafford, Stone, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Burton, Tamworth, and South Staffordshire.

The students twittered updates from each count to the StaffsLive twitter stream and posted all the results and reaction interviews, including audio and video and still images, onto StaffsLive. To read their reports click here.

Course leader Pete Leydon said: “We’ve just completed the final election special radio bulletin at 12.30pm, and now two of them have gone down to cover the Stoke City Council local election count! A fantastic team effort!”

Voters queuing in the rain to vote before being turned away proved to be a big breaking story for student reporters from the accredited BA and MA Journalism courses at the University of Sheffield.

A major multimedia project took place in the university newsroom, where students worked as a team to produce live newspapers, web output, radio and television.

A scoop was scored when the students were the first to break the Hallam polling station story. Read Anna Macnaugton’s account of the story here.

Course leader David Holmes said: “Our coverage of the story led to both the Times and Telegraph websites linking to us, and our live website scored over 2,000 hits on the night. Not bad from a standing start with no readers at all!”

Elsewhere in the UK students from the accredited PgDip Journalism course at Cardiff University helped Media Wales, the BBC, ITV, Radio Cymru, Real Radio and Red Dragon Radio report from counts. Students from Highbury College, Portsmouth, helped cover election night at The News, Portsmouth.

The first-ever parliamentary election victory for the Green Party was covered by students from the NCTJ-accredited fast-track newspaper and magazine courses at City College, Brighton and Hove.

Nine students from Up to Speed Journalism Training covered general election counts, including student Jack Parsons, who witnessed Labour minister Jim Knight losing his seat in Dorset South.

Cezara Pallister, a student on the accredited MA/PgDip Journalism course at Salford University had a long night. Cezara was helping Sky News cover the Oldham East count which included four recounts. The tired student was working hard at 10am this morning.

At the University of Central Lancashire, students from the accredited BA and MA journalism courses filmed nine counts for the BBC and Granada.

BA Journalism course leader Deborah Robinson said: “They all relished working with professionals and learning how to meet deadlines under pressure.”

Students from the Centre for Journalism at University of Kent, covered election counts in Kent for the KM Group, Sky News and The Independent. First and second year undergraduates took responsibility for text, video and online coverage of counts throughout the county.

Clare Carswell, of Glasgow Caledonian University’s MA Multimedia Journalism course, helped with GMTV’s camerawork, filming and editing and liaising with candidates for interviews at the count in Perth. Student Christine Lavelle reported from the East Renfrewshire count.

Fellow Glasgow Caledonian student Martin Graham, a recipient of a Journalism Diversity Fund bursary, also had a busy night.

 Martin said: “I was covering the Glasgow count for Local News Glasgow. We had a team of four people, including one photographer, covering the seven constituencies and also the by-election for a Glasgow City Council seat. We did live copy and photo updates to the website and I was tweeting from the count as well.”

To read Martin’s copy click here.

Donna Vaughan, a student from Brighton Journalist Works, was at the Eastbourne count, one of the few places the Liberal Democrats gained a seat from the Conservatives. Donna secured an interview with Conservative candidate Nigel Waterston which was broadcast on Heart radio.

Fellow Journalist Works student Simon Hadley was at the count in Lewes and Luke Flunder covered the count in Crawley.

The best job of the night was secured by student Davet Hyland who reported from a Brighton pub, The Greys, which stayed open until 3am, blogging and tweeting public reaction to the news that Brighton had the first ever Green MP for the Argus website.

Davet said: “It was kind of like watching a football game, except this was politics. I loved it.”