Archive for the ‘Up To Speed Articles’ Category
Friday, May 10th, 2013 at 8:30 am
Midweek Herald
If you have passed all your NCTJ exams and have 100wpm shorthand, then you can apply for this position in Devon.
NQJ Support
The Midweek Herald is an award-winning free newspaper based in Sidmouth and the successful applicant will be trained to take the NCTJ’s senior qualification, the NQJ.
Driving Licence
You will need your own transport and a clean driving licence.
Find out more here.
Tags: journalism careers, journalism jobs, NCTJ, NCTJ journalism, Shorthand, trainee reporter, Up To Speed Journalism
Posted in Up To Speed Articles | No Comments »
Thursday, May 9th, 2013 at 9:56 am
Production Assistant
Duties include: Setting up single camera shoots, booking freelancers, fixing accommodation and travel arrangements; compiling post-production paperwork; fixing post-production freelance editors, digitizing and dubbing.
Six-month Contract
Deadline: 5pm May 9th
Employer: IMG Media
Find out more here.
Posted in Up To Speed Articles | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 16th, 2013 at 4:22 pm
A New Kind Of Publishing
Ever wondered if it would be possible to embed a story on your website just like you can a video from YouTube?
Repost Allows You To Do That
You can read about it in the piece below.
It Originally Appeared on Pando Daily
Click on the orange repost button above to spread the word.
Now publishers are lining up to give away their content for free (via
Pando Daily)
By Hamish McKenzie On April 16, 2013For many articles published on PandoDaily, you can find an exact duplicate published somewhere else, illegally, on some obscure website that is trying to ginny up pageviews in the name of earning cash from the ads on the site. It’s an annoying but kind of unavoidable…
Tags: Hamish Mckenzie, PandoDaily, repost
Posted in Up To Speed Articles | No Comments »
Sunday, April 14th, 2013 at 10:21 am

Alice Fredenham sings My Funny Valentine.
Picture: ITV
If we ever need any showbiz gossip at Up To Speed we can always turn to celeb writer Becky Greenow and this week the Reveal reporter had an amazing tale to tell about one of her former classmates here.
Alice Fredenham, 28, took the same NCTJ course as Becky back in 2009, but had always kept her secret singing talent to herself. And so it was quite a surprise when the girl Becky remembered from Up To Speed classes in shorthand, law and reporting stepped out onto the stage.
During her time at Up To Speed Alice did discover she had a talent in front of the microphone when her voice could be heard on news bulletins for Forest FM in the New Forest.
And it was very clear from the response of judges Simon Cowell, David Walliams, Alesha Dixon and Amanda Holden to Alice’s debut on Britain’s Got Talent that the time she has devoted to music since she finished our course has paid off.
You can read Becky Greenow’s preview piece in Reveal by clicking here.

Becky Greenow (left) tweets about her friend Alice Fredenham.
Tags: Alesha Dixon, Alice Fredenham, Amanda Holden, Becky Greenow, BGT, Britain's Got Talent, David Walliams, Rebecca Greenow, Simon Cowell, Up To Speed Journalism
Posted in Up To Speed Articles | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 26th, 2013 at 11:41 am
A Journalist’s Job
A new survey published today gives a fascinating insight into the real lives of journalists working in the UK, a subject often shrouded in myth and mystery.
The comprehensive report is an independent survey commissioned by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.
It compares findings to a similar report published in 2002 shortly after the dot-com bubble had burst and the internet was making its first significant inroads into every area of the media.
The survey, which you can download below, gives a fascinating insight into the working lives, educational backgrounds and training experiences of journalists in the UK.
- there has been no significant fall in the number of journalists working in the UK since 2002
- that 82% of working journalists have a degree
- that 63% of journalists have a journalism qualification
- that 73% of qualified journalists have completed an NCTJ course
Popular first degrees taken by Journalists at Work in 2012 were:
- English 23%
- Social sciences 16%
- History or philosophy 12%
- Journalism 10%
Tags: JAW 2012, Journalism, Journalists At Work, Journalists At Work 2012, NCTJ, NCTJ Accreditation, NCTJ courses, NCTJ Training
Posted in Up To Speed Articles | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 at 5:32 pm

Tom Crocker receives his award from NCTJ Chairman Kim Fletcher. (c) Peter Summers, Up to Speed photographer
A former Up To Speed student has won the Football League Sports Journalism Award and a chance to report from the press box at the Championship play-off finals.
Tom Crocker’s match report will be published on the Football League website. Tom won the award for coming top in the NCTJ’s national Sports Journalism exam last year and he was presented with his certificate by NCTJ Chairman Kim Fletcher.
Tom, 19, joined Up To Speed from Poole Grammar School. He took the fast-track course at our Daily Echo offices.
Up To Speed’s sports journalism tutor Rick Broadbent said: “Tom was one of those students at Up To Speed who needed minimal help with his writing. He has got a natural talent for crisp, clean and clear copy that would make him an asset to any sports desk. He has also had the gumption to go and get experience of the sporting world, working at AFC Bournemouth during a turbulent time in the club’s history, and I am sure that combination of initiative and journalistic skill will hold him in good stead in the years ahead.”
Tags: Bournemouth Echo journalism courses, Football league award, NCTJ, NCTJ Sports journalism award, Rick Broadbent, Sports Journalism NCTJ., Tom Crocker
Posted in Up To Speed Articles | No Comments »
Friday, January 11th, 2013 at 3:44 pm
The revolution in publishing brought about by e-readers including the Kindle, Kobo and Nook presents all sorts of opportunities for journalists as well as writers.
But how easy is it to get your work published?
There are lots of companies out there who are prepared to do the job for you for a price, but all you really need is Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop Elements and a certain amount of patience.
I used Kindle Direct Publishing and a simple, free guide downloaded to my Kindle to turn a series of blog posts from this website into an e-book called Twenty Practical Tips For Reporters, which gives advice on some of the “soft skills” used by journalists to cover stories.
All I had to do was follow the instructions in the guide about things like placing text in the centre of the page and adding internal links from Chapter Titles to my Table of Contents(TOC) and the KDP service did the rest.
It took about twenty-four hours for the book to “go live”.
If you want to go one stage further and turn text into files compatible with all the e-readers you will need to consider investing in Adobe Indesign or Quark and track down some tutorials on how to arrange paragraphs, chapters and fonts to work with any size of screen or type of device you may hope to have your book read on.
Tags: Adobe Indesign, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Amazon, KDP, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kobo, Microsoft Word, Nook, Quark, self-publishing for journalists
Posted in Up To Speed Articles | No Comments »