Press Association Training Tutors

The tutors
Peter Sands, Director Peter Sands was a successful, campaigning editor of The Northern Echo. During that time the Echo was redesigned to win a string of awards, including the National Design Award. He moved on to become development editor of Westminster Press before setting up the Editorial Centre in 1995. An authority on design, colour, graphics and the media industry, Peter is in demand as a designer, trainer, consultant and conference speaker.
tony Johnston, Head of Press Association Training Tony has spent the past five years as head of editorial staff development for Trinity Mirror where he led the development of their Newcastle based Editorial Training Centre. Prior to that he performed a similar role for Trinity plc and Thomson Regional Newspapers. He trained as a journalist and was deputy editor of the Reading Evening Post and Assistant Editor of the Evening Gazette, Teesside. His background is in news journalism and he was a successful news editor, chief reporter and reporter before moving into journalism training. He is a member of the Society of Editor’s Training Committee and sits on the Newspaper Qualifications Council.
Alison Trueman, training manager Alison Trueman is hugely experienced in media software training. She worked for three years as a peripatetic trainer for Tera UK Ltd, installing its editorial system and training subs to use it. Before that she worked at Yorkshire Post Newspapers where she trained editorial and production staff to use QuarkXPress. She runs courses in all media software including Quark and Adobe InDesign.
paul jones Paul has been Head of Foundation Course Training since 1995; he was the former deputy news editor, industrial editor, district chief reporter and general news reporter at the Evening Chronicle, Newcastle. Education reporter/general news reporter, Evening Post and Chronicle Wigan, general news reporter/sub-editor, Burnley Express.
david banks David is former Deputy Head of Foundation Course Training and now works as a senior lecturer in Law at Sunderland University. Prior to this he was head of short course training with responsibility for law since 1999. He is the Co-editor of MacNae's Essential Law for Journalists, Examiner NCTJ NCE newspaper practice. He has been the night editor, night news editor, chief reporter, and reporter Daily Post Liverpool. He was the arts editor, business editor and chief reporter North Wales Newspapers. He has LIB (Hons) Liverpool Polytechnic and a Diploma in Journalism Studies Universtity College Cardiff. He does senior law training for PA Training.
Peter Barron Peter Barron has been editor of The Northern Echo since 1998. He was formerly news-editor of the Echo before becoming editor of The Hartlepool Mail and then going on to achieve a lifetime's ambition to edit the Great Daily of the North 13 months later. A former UK Columnist of the Year, Peter contributes to our Centre's news-editing course.
Sylvia Bennett Sylvia Bennett has been teaching shorthand and keyboarding to journalists at Hastings since 1980 with first-class results. She trained at Pitman's College in London and is expert in three systems of shorthand Teeline, Pitman New Era and Pitman 2000 and is a qualified teacher, teacher trainer, NVQ assessor and internal verifier.
Mike Brough Mike Brough has been involved in graphic design for 20 years. Eight years were spent on The Northern Echo where he helped build an editorial graphics department of four. A winner of the Press Gazette award for use of graphics, he also helped set up a commercial design department. His design consultancy works with the Editorial Centre on newspaper redesigns a partnership which has developed more than 60 titles.
Jim Collins Jim Collins has worked as a reporter and sub-editor for regional and national newspapers, including The Guardian, the Financial Times and the Daily Express. He was assistant editor of the Sheffield Star before joining The Press Association. He is a qualified NVQ assessor and has been heavily involved in the PA development of NVQ journalism courses with the Grimsby Institute.
Mike Dodd Mike Dodd is a journalist and a barrister. For 25 years he was copy editor with The Press Association, dealing with editorial legal issues, as well as helping reporters to challenge reporting restriction orders. Since gaining his law degree and Masters degree, he has written on media law for newspapers, magazines and academic journals. He also teaches media law on journalism courses and at seminars and spent four years as an external examiner for the media law element of a university's postgraduate journalism courses.
Andrew Drinkwater Andrew Drinkwater has worked as a daily newspaper news-editor, assistant editor, sports-editor and business-editor. After ten years in the regional press he worked at The Sunday Times, The Independent and Reuters, before becoming news-editor at Sky Sports. Andrew runs reporting masterclasses, news-editing and sports-writing courses and is a tutor on the pre-entry course.
Frank le Duc Frank le Duc was a journalist for The Times for 12 years. He was formerly deputy editor of the Thurrock Gazette and has worked for the FT and The Argus in Brighton. On the staff at Hastings in 1991, he has continued to teach government at the centre since then.
Christina Fox Christina Fox spent 13 years at the BBC – 11 as a camerawoman. Thanks to the excellent training they offer she had a chance to work on a whole range of programmes including: Lenny Henry's first comedy series; Playschool (she got to zoom through the round window); drama; classical music concerts; and her main claim to fame – covering a whole day’s play from the Pavilion at Lords' cricket ground (the old colonels there were a bit surprised when they realised a woman had infiltrated their men only club – but she did have permission to be there). As part of her initiation into PSC (portable single camera work) she spent six months as a location sound recordist – her most memorable moment being in Tiananmen Square when the student protest started. Christina went on to deliver studio and location camera training at the BBC's training centre at Wood Norton before joining The BBC's Journalist Training department full time. Once there, she devised and delivered a four day course for journalists on how to operate a Hi-8 hand-held camcorder. Today she still run this course at the BBC in Bristol despite leaving the BBC in 1997 to run her own business.
Paul Francis Paul Francis is political editor of the Kent Messenger Group. An award-winning journalist, he lectures on local and central government and is a well-known commentator, writer and conference speaker on Freedom of Information and the media. Paul helps run the government course on pre-entry and is also available for senior courses and seminars.
John Giles John Giles has been a photographer for 37 years. He joined The Press Association in 1988 and since then has covered the Olympic Games, World Cup cricket, World Cup football, World and European Championships, Royal visits and conflicts involving UK forces. His many awards include the British Press Awards' Sports Photographer of the Year in 1997 and News Photographer of the Year in 2003. John contributes to the centre's photography and picture-editing courses.
Tony Goodson Tony has spent the bulk of his 30 years in journalism with major media companies ITN, Reuters and Sky mostly in senior operational and managerial roles. Latterly at BSkyB he was managing editor of Sky Sports Online, leading the web business to unprecedented growth in traffic and revenue and making skysports.com the leading commercial sports web business in Europe. Now a media consultant, he is helping companies to plan their web strategies, source and deliver content.
George Gray George Gray has more than 30 years experience, chiefly in the production side of journalism. He joined The Press Association after 12 years as assistant editor of the Yorkshire Post during which time he gave the paper its first redesign for a quarter of a century and helped it to win Newspaper of the Year in 2002. He has also been responsible for redesigns of the Harrogate Advertiser series and the Halifax Evening Courier. George helps with design courses and consultancies for the centre.
Pat hagan Pat Hagan is Deputy Head of Foundation Course at Newcastle and delivers the law element of the course. Previously she has worked at the Telegraph & Argus in Bradford and The Journal in Newcastle as a general reporter, municipal correspondent, feature writer, columnist and proof reader. She was a senior sub-editor/designer with The Journal, where she also mentored trainee reporters and trained sub-editors. She has also managed programmes in production training. Pat has a post-graduate Diploma in Journalism Studies from University College, Cardiff.
STEVE HENDER Steve Hender spent 17 years lecturing Management before setting up his own training company. Steve now runs training courses for a wide variety of corporate clients both inside and outside the media industry. As well as a first degree in management, and an MBA, Steve is an internationally certified trainer and master practitioner of NLP. He is a dynamic, flexible and highly enthusiastic trainer, who always ensures that his training is both enjoyable to experience and effective. He has a wide variety of approaches and vast subject knowledge; these two factors combine to ensure that he is able to help individuals produce changes in almost any setting with apparent ease. Steve absolutely loves his work and this really shows!
Nick Jenkins Nick Jenkins spent 14 years with the Mirror Group, beginning as a graduate trainee and finishing as chief sub of the Daily Mirror. He spent nine years at the Yorkshire Post as deputy editor before joining The Press Association where he is production editor of the news wire. Nick runs subbing and layout courses.
Daniel Lee Daniel Lee is a writer and editor for newspapers, magazines, websites and interactive projects. He writes for The Guardian, Time Out, Computer Weekly, Channel 4 and other publishers. He has written for children and teenagers and penned several published non-fiction and fiction books. Daniel, a qualified journalist and a solicitor, delivers courses covering writing and editing for the web, investigative reporting, freelance working and law and ethics.
Brendan Martin Brendan Martin, a former features editor at TV Times, has worked for The Times, Daily Express, Irish Independent, Radio Times and other titles. He has been a journalism trainer and NVQ assessor since 1994, when he was part of a National Training Award team. As well as training journalists in reporting, writing and subbing in the UK, Ireland, USA and Asia, he runs courses in QuarkXPress, Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, web design and the Internet.
Phil Muse Phil Muse has been involved in media technology training for much of his career. In addition he has designed, built, and installed audio and video studios for the education sector, written and managed courses to degree level, acted as technical manager of a pan-European project to create a multimedia language tool, and for a number of years managed a commercial multimedia production facility, also acting as technical designer. Phil gives support to video journalists at The Press Association and delivers courses in video editing.
susan nixon Susan started working for Thomson Regional Newspapers training centre in 1984 and was a Pitman writer at 120wpm. She took over shorthand tution in 1987. She has gained the City & Guilds Certificate – Teaching in further education and a Teeline Proficiency Certificate.
Martin Oates Martin Oates is one of the few executives in the regional Press with a photographic background. Martin spent 14 years as a photographer with the Yorkshire Evening Press before a stream of promotions took him to the picture-editor's position. He then became assistant editor, taking responsibility for the paper in the editor's absence.
Brian Page After 15 years with The Northern Echo, Liverpool Daily Post and Evening Gazette in Middlesbrough, Brian Page is now the experienced editor of a number of magazines, including Mensa magazine. An award-winning writer and designer Brian has served as deputy editor, assistant editor, sports-editor and features-editor of daily newspapers. His specialist areas include sports-editing and feature-writing.
Helen Philpot Helen Philpot is a broadcaster, presenter, producer and voice over trainer based in East Yorkshire. As a broadcaster and producer she narrates features and programmes for both TV and radio and worked for the BBC for nine years. She worked as a foreign correspondent for the MOD in Cyprus and is now also editor of Propeller TV's RADAR programme which as aimed at making news more accessible to young people.
Pat Pilton Pat Pilton has operated at a senior level for many newspaper groups. He was group managing editor of the national titles at Trinity Mirror and editor of the South Wales Echo in Cardiff and the Sunday Sun in Newcastle. Both newspapers won national industry design awards and the Echo was also named Feature Newspaper of the Year. Pat is a former night editor of the Daily Express, deputy editor of the London Daily News, assistant editor of Today and deputy night-editor of The Sun. He plays a major training role at the centre.
Allan Prosser Allan Prosser has worked in newspapers in every capacity from office junior to MD and has successfully edited frees, paid-for weeklies and morning titles. Allan specialises in assisting publications to relaunch and develop new markets. He was the editor behind a highly successful relaunch of Farmers Guardian; was publishing director for the repositioning of Printing World and consultant editor with the Irish Examiner. Allan has been the author of several reports into the future of the newspaper business and is frequently in demand as a tutor, conference and after-dinner speaker.
Martin Stephens Martin Stephens is head of archive and production at Empics, The Press Association's photo syndication business. Martin built up the PA host photography service for PR clients and presents to companies on what makes a good picture and how to deal with picture desks and photographers. As picture-editor Martin has worked on major celebrity events, including the Oscars. He heads up the centre's picture-editing course and contributes to other photographic training sessions.
Phil Swift Phil Swift worked in national newspapers for more than 30 years. His career began at the Daily Mail where he was a news sub-editor. He then spent more than 20 years at the Daily Mirror, first in production roles — sub-editing, chief sub-editing and night editing — before becoming features editor and then deputy editor of the newspaper. He has also worked at The People, The Sunday Mirror and Today. Phil came to the Press Association in 2001 and was previously producing business and financial newspapers and magazines for Andrew Neil before joining the PA Training team.
Robin Thompson Robin Thompson is well-known to newspapers and broadcasters as an entertaining, inspirational and motivational trainer. Before becoming a full-time trainer Robin was the award-winning editor of evening and weekly newspapers. He is in demand as a media law lecturer and is an acclaimed authority in communication skills, personal effectiveness and management. He has lifted the motivational levels in newspaper offices all over Britain. Robin runs courses in journalism, law, management, motivation and plays a key role in the centre's pre-entry course and subbing diplomas.
Mike Watson Mike Watson, The Press Association's systems editor, is a product of the Westminster Press training scheme. He began his subbing career in newspapers in west London before moving to the Oxford Mail where he won a national design award. Mike was The Press Association's news wire chief sub until 2001, since then he has developed the agency's new multimedia computer system, the Mediapoint web delivery service. Mike takes a leading role in the subbing diplomas and other training courses.
Greg Woodfield Greg Woodfield has spent 20 years at the sharp end of national newspaper journalism with a variety of senior staff roles, notably on the backbench of The Sun. Skilled in sub-editing, headline writing and page design, Greg also brings his experience as a reporter with the Press Association and as The Sun’s news editor in Scotland to our training team. He is a former splash sub on The Sun and additionally he has worked for GMTV as a news producer, was on the middle bench of Today and also a journalist on the Irish Independent, where he reported on The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Greg has been heavily involved in the major news stories of recent years, from Lockerbie to 9/11 to Tony Blair’s resignation as PM.