BRIEFING

PA Media Centre Experience

Students from schools and colleges around Yorkshire and Humberside are being offered the chance to become real journalists as part of an exciting education project.

The Press Association has launched the PA Media Centre Experience, which allows young people a unique insight into the world of newspapers.

Students spend six weeks writing stories and taking pictures for their own newspaper, then spend two days at PA’s training centre in Howden, East Yorkshire, putting pages together for an eight page full colour tabloid paper.

They work on the same computers as PA’s real journalists and produce professional looking pages in an identical way to staff sub editors.

At the end of the programme each school will receive 2000 printed copies of their own title.

Tony Johnston, head of Press Association Training, said: “This project is a fantastic way for PA to develop its links with local communities.

“We are giving young people a real insight into the worlds of communication, technology, the media and business.

“Since we launched it a few weeks ago we have taken lots of bookings from schools wanting to be involved in the scheme.”

During their two days with PA, students are given a tour of PA’s state-of-the-art operations centre that provides news and sport content for all the UK’s major media organisations.

They are also given a chance to see the workings of a real TV studio.

At the start of the project students have to appoint an editor, news editor, sports editor and picture editor to lead the project.

Others write stories and take pictures in the build up to the two production days.

Alison Trueman, PA’s editorial training manager, said; “We train many real journalists on the same equipment being used by these students. This is a great opportunity for young people to learn about the media in a hands-on way.”