It’s been another great year for CfJ alumni at the annual NCTJ Awards for Excellence, with two wins announced at last night’s virtual ceremony hosted by Sky News.
Kent Journalism BA graduate Adam Landau won ‘Best student project’ – the fourth consecutive year a CfJ graduate has scooped this award – and Kent Multimedia Journalism MA graduate Oliver Kemp won the highly competitive ‘Community News Project’ award.
The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) holds the awards each year to highlight the achievements of individuals with promising journalism careers ahead of them. More than 400 entries were received across all categories from student, trainee and apprentice journalists.
‘Best student project’: Adam Landau
Adam’s documentary on Brunel and the Original High Speed Railway was praised by judges as “a highly professional piece of documentary journalism.” They said: “It could easily have been a Panorama style programme which you could have watched, with interest, for the full 30 minutes.”
Adam, who graduated from Kent last summer, now works as an aviation videographer for aerobatic display team AeroSPARX. He’s also the founder and editor of This is Flight, a website providing global airshow coverage.
During his studies at Kent, Adam earned the highest mark of 85% in the NCTJ’s Essential Journalism exam in 2019. This exam tests how well young journalists write news stories accurately and at speed and is regarded as one of the hardest in the NCTJ’s Diploma in Journalism.
Previous CfJ winners in this category are: Isabel Eidhamar, Mike Haffenden and Boglarka Kosztolyani.
‘Community News Project’ award: Oliver Kemp
Oliver was recognised for “exceptional work done by reporters” in the Facebook-funded ‘Community News Project’ award. The judges said his entry “was a real standout”. Announcing his win, head of Sky News John Ryley said: ‘His analysis of refugee arrivals on the Kent coast brought a fresh, sympathetic and local perspective to an international issue. His examination of social deprivation in Thanet was a masterclass in multimedia feature production which brought to life the community behind the statistics.’
Oliver graduated in 2019 and now works as a feature writer and Head of Social for KentOnline. He’s also a newsreader for Kent radio station KMFM and creator of Deep Cuts, a YouTube channel dedicated to music.
Oliver was also Commended in the ‘Trainee features’ award and Highly Commended in the ‘Trainee podcast journalism’ award.
See all the results and submissions on the NCTJ website and watch the ceremony again on YouTube (Adam’s win is at: 32.07 and Oliver’s win is at: 38.50).
NCTJ accreditation
The NCTJ is the industry’s charity that delivers the premier training scheme for journalists in the UK. NCTJ accreditation for journalism degree programmes is the hallmark of excellence in journalism training, providing a world-class industry standard that is recognised throughout the media. Programmes at CfJ are fully accredited by the NCTJ, meaning you can graduate not just with a university degree, but also with an NCTJ Diploma – the closest thing there is to a passport to a job in UK journalism. Find out more about our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.