University of Northampton’s Journalism students deliver sterling election coverage and win coveted award at Community Radio Awards

A team of budding journalists from the University of Northampton (UON) have received a national award thanks to their live election reporting earlier this year.

A total of 22 Multimedia Journalism and Multimedia Sports Journalism undergraduates were at the heart of a UK-wide collaboration earlier this year, broadcasting an election results programme from 4-5 July on Northampton’s local radio station, NLive Radio.

Organised by the University of Northampton’s staff through the Broadcast Journalism Training Council, their programme – titled Vote 24 – was presented with the Silver Award for Best Election Coverage at the Community Radio Awards in Cardiff last Saturday (16 November).

As a part of the programme, the students went on air at 10pm – the moment the polling stations closed – and carried on broadcasting live until 6am the following morning, reporting on Labour’s election victory as it unfolded.

Students from across the three year groups on the University’s Multimedia Journalism and Multimedia Sports Journalism courses took part in the project, collaborating with journalism students from 20 other universities across the country.

UON students provided three of the four presenters for the programme, delivered all the bulletins, supervised and led the social media, as well as providing reporters to cover key counts.

Most of the UON student count reporters simultaneously worked for Sky News or ITV News on the night.

The task of professionally editing the Vote 24 programme fell to Multimedia Sports Journalism student, Cameron Watson. With responsibilities including co-ordinating student reporters at counts from Plymouth to Aberdeen, Cameron led the student delegation who accepted the award on Saturday (16 November). He said: “It’s an experience I will never forget. With the planning and production on the night, as well as getting to have the quality of the broadcast rewarded, is one of the most special recognitions I could ask for as a student.”

This innovative reporting collaboration was organised and led by the University of Northampton’s Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Kate Ironside in her capacity as Deputy Chair of the Broadcast Journalism Training Council.

Kate said: “I’m thrilled the students have won the Silver Award! It’s a great recognition of their efforts. What they were doing that night was replicating industry practice, showing their future employers how they too could cover a huge breaking story of national significance.

“It also demonstrated the critical importance of NLive Radio. We simply could not have done this without NLive Radio which provided the students with that crucial platform to broadcast from. I’m immensely grateful for all the help and support we got from station manager Martin Steers who was an invaluable part of the operation.”

The programme was also shared with other community radio stations on the night. NLive Radio Station Manager, Martin Steers said: “It’s fantastic to see the University of Northampton’s Journalism students and NLive Radio collectively recognised for their national election coverage show, a great opportunity for the students to gain real life experience of live political broadcasting with their reporting and presenting being broadcast on stations across the country.”

Count reporter, Jessica McLoughlin studies Multimedia Journalism. She combined working for the student programme with working for ITV News from the main Northampton count.  Jessica said: “It was an amazing experience covering the UK election. Getting to play a part in the election coverage of an organisation as big as ITV was daunting but it went really well. I would definitely do it again!”

Fellow Multimedia Journalism student, Fran Roche also reported a count for the student programme and ITV Anglia. She said: “It was an absolutely incredible experience getting the chance to report on an election and to work with top class journalists. It was a huge privilege.”

Find out more about studying Multimedia Journalism and Multimedia Sports Journalism at the University of Northampton.