NCTJ teams up with Press Gazette to publish 2016/17 guide to becoming a journalist

The NCTJ has teamed up with Press Gazette to create a guide to journalism training.

Published by Press Gazette in association with the NCTJ, the 32-page guide includes tips from top journalists (including NCTJ alumnus and former Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger), advice on getting a job in the industry from editors and a full list of NCTJ-accredited courses.

It also provides an overview of the NCTJ journalism training routes, with an introduction to the various accredited course options, apprenticeships and the Journalism Diversity Fund.

Print copies of the training supplement have been sent to the careers libraries of every sixth form and university in the UK – nearly 4,000 in total. A digital version is also available on the Press Gazette website and the NCTJ website.

Writing in the guide, Kim Fletcher, chairman of the NCTJ and former editorial director of The Telegraph, encouraged those interested in a career in journalism to complete an NCTJ qualification if prospective reporters believed in the ideals of a credible media.

He wrote: “…courses accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists are such a good start. The skills that are taught change as the industry changes, but the underlying values we insist on do not. We believe that journalism is an important craft, that lively media are essential to democracy, that it is harder for powerful figures to do bad things when journalists are there to keep an eye on them.”

In his introduction to the guide, Dominic Ponsford, editor of Press Gazette, advised aspiring journalists to get an NCTJ qualification as a way to get the skills editors desire.

He wrote: “You will vastly improve your chances of getting a job in journalism if you get the necessary professional training. The core skills you need are newswriting, shorthand and media law. The [NCTJ] accredits courses which provide those skills and more to the standard required by editors.”

'How to be a journalist 2016/17' is available to read online here, if you’d like to obtain physical copies please get in touch with benjy.wilson@nctj.com.