Historic win for Goldsmiths students at journalism awards

Students from Goldsmiths’ MA in Television Journalism went home with three awards in the annual Broadcast Journalism Training Council (BJTC) student awards – the largest number of wins for any university.

The BJTC is the UK’s largest industry-backed higher education training body for multiplatform, broadcast and mobile journalism, and entries come from among the 70 accredited courses in over 40 institutions, attended by over 4,000 students. The awards ceremony took place at the BBC MediaCity in Salford on 28 November 2017.

Goldsmiths students won awards in categories including TV New Documentary, TV Newsday and The Steve Harris Award for Best Original Story.

The students on the MA in TV Journalism course won Best TV Newsday for the second year running for a weekly ELL+ programme which is shown on the East London Lines website. Judges commented that the programme “understood its viewers and delivered a strong news magazine show which flowed well and had a sensible running order”.

Vicky Double, Vicky Lo-Chi Tseng and Katriona Thompson won Best TV Documentary for what judges called a “really mature” and “well researched” film titled Church and State focusing on the role of politicians and the Catholic Church in Ireland over the mother and baby homes scandal. Another student, Simisola Jolaoso, won the Steve Harris Award for Best Original Story for her documentary Forensic Nurses: Fighting Sex Crimes in South Africa. The film, which she submitted as a programme proposal for one of her module assessments, was praised for its “moving insight” and “strong storytelling”.

On the achievements of Goldsmiths students, programme convener Linda Lewis said: "I am incredibly proud of all of the students. Winning best TV Newsday in the country for the second year running is a fantastic achievement.  

"To be shortlisted in four separate categories was a major achievement, securing the highest number of nominations of any BJTC-accredited course in the country. Then going on to win three awards, again more than any other university, is hugely impressive.”

Many of the winning students have now finished their studies and have taken their first jobs in television, video production, radio, print and online for organisations such as Sky News, ITV West Country and the BBC.