St Mary’s Student Wins Funding for Journalism Course

A postgraduate Sports Journalism student at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, is to receive over £10,000 from the newspaper industry to support his training during the coming year. Neil Kingston received his bursary from the Journalism Diversity Fund during a celebration lunch at News International’s headquarters last week, where he met senior journalists and representatives of the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). As a former National Student Radio Award winner, Neil recognises that this is a golden opportunity for him to break into the industry. He said, “Having come through the selection process, I feel that anything is achievable and I can’t wait to repay the people who have invested their faith in me.” NCTJ Chairman, Kim Fletcher said that the industry must encourage people from more diverse backgrounds to get into journalism, “When we say diverse, we mean diverse in all sorts of ways. It could be ethnically diverse; it could just be in terms of socio-economic background. We just want to broaden the group of people getting into journalism.” St Mary’s MA in Sports Journalism was the first in the UK to be professionally accredited by the NCTJ and offers students a unique training experience. For more information about the MA in Sports Journalism, please email journalism@stmarys.ac.uk or call Daragh Minogue on 020 8 240 4111.