Best Performing Postgraduate Course

Cardiff's Newspaper Journalism postgraduate training has been named as the Best Performing Higher Education Postgraduate course in 2011-2012 by the National Council for the Training of Journalists' (NCTJ).

At a ceremony held in Nottingham, the NCTJ recognised Cardiff's as the top performing postgraduate University course with Cardiff students achieving higher marks than their peers around the country.

Cardiff's Director of the Centre for Journalism Professor Richard Sambrook received the award following a gala dinner at the NCTJ's Journalism Skills Conference.

Speaking about the award, Professor Sambrook said: "The fact that our newspaper students achieved higher NCTJ marks than any other postgraduate university course speaks volumes for the quality of our training and teaching.

"It's not the first time we've won this award and Cardiff's reputation as a leader of postgraduate training means more than ever for those looking to get their first foot on the careers ladder.

"The Cardiff stamp of approval means we regularly achieve our goal of finding journalism jobs for all of our Dip/MA Journalism graduates."

Introducing the awards, NCTJ chief executive Joanne Butcher said: "It is no mean feat to achieve accreditation and to make the public commitment to providing all the NCTJ requires. We know how demanding and exacting that standard is and the public scrutiny it involves."

Cardiff's postgraduate training can be taken as a nine month Diploma in Journalism or one year Masters Degree in Journalism and is available in three options – broadcast, magazine or newspaper. The practice-based course gives students the chance to develop the skills they need for a successful career in the modern media, along with the values of journalism – accuracy, integrity, fairness and high production standards.