Earliest Days

The 1976 students visited the Guardian, where they were guided by Brian Jones, deputy editor (centre), who had earlier instructed the course in layout.

Students visit Guardian composing room

The 13 students on the first course (1976-7), and the jobs they went to, were:

Sarah Bayliss South London Press; assistant editor, TES; editor, TES Friday magazine; Head of Press, the Teaching Awards

Terry Dignan Sheffield Morning Telegraph; Independent Radio News; A Week in Politics, London Plus, BBC TV South and East; On the Record, BBC TV; reporter, BBC Radio 4; editor, Westminster Hour, BBC Radio 4.  Dignan’s programme, The Westminster Hour, was named the Political Programme of the Year in 2007 by the Political Studies Association.

Nigel Dudley Middle East Economic Digest; Financial Weekly; The Daily Telegraph; chief leader writer, Middle East Business and Finance, the European; freelance

Steve Howell Redbridge Guardian; relationship counsellor, London Marriage Guidance

Peter Kendall South Wales Evening Post; Western Mail; public affairs director, British Rail; PR director, European Passenger Services; PR director, Eurostar International; Bowles Kendall Storer Corporate Communications

Sue Landau Hornsey Journal; City News; Investors Chronicle; Reuters financial news, London and Paris; International Herald Tribune; MA in translation, Africa Mining Intelligence and literary translation.

Jacky Law South Western Star; Sutton Herald; Medical Economics; freelance; associate editor, Scrip magazine; author

In “Big Pharma”, published in 2006, Jacky Law lifted the lid on the world of the largest pharmaceutical companies to reveal the real challenges facing modern health care.  For all the benefits they brought, the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest companies increasingly faced a conflict between the goals of corporate wealth and public health. In a broad and independent analysis of the modern healthcare system,  Jacky Law showed how a small number of corporations had come to dominate the agenda in Britain and America. She revealed a system in which the relentless pursuit of profit was crowding out the public good. Effective regulators were under intense pressure from corporate lobbies, and companies spent more money on marketing than on research and development. The cost of new drugs was rising relentlessly while the number of original new products declined.

Jacky Law visiting radio station

Mark Newham FT European Energy Report, FT (foreign desk), edited Environment Business Magazine, Economist Intelligence Unit stringer in Nairobi, Xinhua News Agency (Beijing), book author.

Mark Newham’s book Limp Pigs and the Five-Ring Circus was published on January 17, 2011. He describes the book as a Chinese memoir-with-attitude. Mark spent two years working with the Chinese state news agency, Xinhua – the gearbox of China’s propaganda machine. The experience convinced him that the West’s perception of a China in transition is a clear-cut case of hope triumphing over experience. If China was changing with real, fundamental change, he says, so would be its media. It isn’t.

Francesca Robinson My Weekly; Exeter Weekly News; Lincolnshire Echo; Sheffield Morning Telegraph; Doctor, Hospital Doctor; freelance (health)

Jon Slattery reporter, senior reporter, Lincolnshire Echo; reporter, Eastern News; freelance; senior reporter, news editor, deputy editor, Press Gazette; freelance media journalist and blogger; contributor to Guardian, The Journalist, Press Gazette, Camden New Journal; editor of UK and Ireland section of Editor and Publisher Year book.

Patrick Smith book researcher; freelance (Lagos); Modern Africa; editor, Africa Confidential

Patrick Smith visiting radio station

Steve Williams Hastings Observer; Maritime magazine; Brighton and Hove Express; freelance

Robin Wills Northampton Chronicle and Echo; BRMB Radio; residential social worker, Islington council; The Guardian; freelance (Athens, Bombay), BBC World Service; psychiatric social worker, Tower Hamlets Council

Robin Wills visiting radio station