This is a little old, but here’s an interesting blog post [NCTJ -academic snobbery] by Andy Dickinson of Uni of Central Lancashire. I agree with just about all his criticisms of the NCTJ.
Random quote:
"For the seven years I have been teaching Online and Multimedia journalism I haven’t seen any change in the NCTJ syllabus that includes “Production, multi-media design packages, content management knowledge, video and audio creation and editing”. Believe me I’ve looked.Oh, how I longed for Oxdown to reflect new media. Even get an internet connection. But no, not even a squeak of recognition for anything other than PA, shorthand and Law ."
At the Society of Editors Conference in November, Joanne Butcher, the chief executive of the NCTJ, hit back at the organisation’s critics. They suffer from "misplaced academic snobbery", apparently.
Presumably the "snobs" are those of us who teach on university journalism degree courses who have questioned the NCTJ’s outdated assessment methods. (Teachers of NCTJ pre-entry courses in FE colleges remain largely supportive).
Let’s face it, the NCTJ knows it has to modernise or else it will soon become irrelevant. Thankfully, I’ve heard it is currently designing a syllabus for online journalism. I hope it will appear sooner rather than later.
Thanks for the Link Steve.
I guess I better add that the views expressed in the post are my views and not the views of the University of Central Lancashire.
I wonder who the NCTJ are working with to build the new syllabus besides the BJTC. The BJTC went to great lengths to incorporate online in to their validation process. The MA online at Uclan was the first to be done so I know they put a lot of thought in to it. But I would like to see a broader consultation with uni courses. After all we have been doing it for a while 🙂