04.03.2004: Steffan Thorsell who graduated from the PG Dip two years ago and has since been working for papers in China and Sweden sends this example of his recent work, a feature interview done in hybrid confessional-gonzo style.

01.03.2004: The Broadcast course five-a-side football team went down to a heavy defeat to the staff veterans, thus leaving the Harrow League wide open. Details here.

27.02.2004: A good set of level two shorthand results, with some useable speeds now being achieved. Click here for print results, click here for broadcast and here for medical.

27.02.2004: Job market news: James Marino (pictured) has become the third PG Dip Print graduate from last year to get a cushy staff job on a national newspaper (Guardian Unlimited) within twelve months of graduating. Last year James was chief reporter on Westminster News Online, landing the terrific LOCAL GIRL ENTERS NATIONAL SLAPPER CONTEST story. Most of the other students, so far as anyone can tell, have got jobs in either the trade press or on local papers by now. True, the students were clever, resourceful and reasonably hard-working. But the good news is that the economy and job market must be picking up if so many students are getting such good jobs so quickly. So that's a nice though on a freezing, dark February morning.

27.02.2004: Interesting conference/networking meeting designed to boost the number of Asian women in the UK print media, featuring ex-student Gita Mendis (now Evening Standard health and fitness editor and editorial director, Doctor Foster)who is a good friend of the PG Dip and BA Medcial journalism courses. More details here.

23.02.2004: Harrow Journalism football League. Next fixture is this Monday 1pm - 2pm: Harrow Staff vs PG Dip Broadcast. Details of the entire remaining fixture list can be found here.

24.02.2004: The glamour of journalism: "It was in this scrum just outside the players’ entrance that I managed to get an interview with Stelios Giannokopoulos, a Bolton midfielder who will be playing for Greece at EURO 2004. I wrote a feature-interview on him and got paid £100 for it, although this only just covered my travel expenses and did not compensate for the loneliness of driving back down to London in thick snow at 1am in a hire car with a dodgy clutch." - From a PG Dip work attachment report. Others can be found on the updated work attachment pages. Reports from this year's students are towards the top. Some students have not yet sent me copies of their reports.

23.02.2004: Muslim student-organised meeting on Islam and the World Media with promise of Yvonne Ridley (ex Sunday Express journalist held captive by Taleban, now a convert to Islam and George Galloway ("invited") to take place the Auditorium on will take place Friday from 6.30pm onwards.

22.02.2004: Guest lecture this Wednesday at 5pm is William G. Stewart, presenter and producer of 15 to 1. More of a Media Studies/TV industry event than strictly journalism, but still interesting. He is well known for writing and directing comedy on British television and should make an interesting speaker about the industry, its past and future. .

20.02.2004: Details relating to this coming Thursday's Level Two shorthand test can be found here.

18.02.2004: Football News: Another victory for the Internationals. Goals: Linus Kaikai (11) Akis Tsoufis (7) Gabriel Wang Wentao (1) Jesse Kwayu (1) Khaled Muhiuddin (1). Results and updated league table league table here.

18.02.2004:The direct link to the student-produced Westminster News Online site has been re-established. Click on http://www.westminsterjournalism.co.uk/ to view the last edition (published in April 2003 - the site has been mothballed since then). This year's PG Dip Print/Medical Journalism students will be using the same site for their live production project. The first edition will be published in two weeks time. This is a great project - good fun, excellent practice, known in the industry, read by up to a quarter of the students on campus (it is a local paper for the Harrow Campus community, and the whole thing is designed to be like a sort of two-month long superwork attachment - complete with genuine publication before an extremely critical and hard-to-please audience) and the winner/shortlistee for two UK Press Gazette ("The Oscars of the Journalism world") awards last year.

Would-be reporters (or anyone with story or gossip tips) should approach the news editor Richie Ruchpaul (e-mail: [email protected])

Feature writers should contact features editor Anna Goldie (e-mail: [email protected]).

Photojournalists with material to offer should contact the picture editor Damon Schunmann (e-mail: [email protected]). The project is based in "crit room 3" on the J-2 floor and you should be able to find somebody there most times through to the end of the academic year.

18.02.2004: Helen Boaden's presentation on Radio Four, given to students in a packed Kodak Lecture Theatre last night, can be viewed here (You need Microsoft powerpoint player pre-installed - see "downloads" in lefthand column).

17.02.2004: Guest lecture (etc) news: Don't forget Helen Boaden's lecture tomorrow at 5pm (still not certain which lecture theatre). Early notice of Human Rights Watch International's film festival fronted by Jon Snow (pictured, above) and taking place in Mayfair from March 17th. Full details here.

17.02.2004:Football News: In a spirit of hospitality towards people from abroad and as an act of national contrition for sending Gazza to China and cheating in the 1966 World Cup Final, PG Dip Print reluctantly and under protest concede victory to MAJI in the Harrow mini-league. The corrected table/fixtures list can be viewed here. And a match report can be read here.

17.02.2004: Charity Drinking News: Nadeeja of BA Medical Journalism writes: "come to a party in BRB, Angel, next thursday (26th) with free pizza and half price cocktails! Tickets are £3.50 and ALL the proceeds go towards Onuakrom (a charity set up by ex-Harrow medical journalism student Mareeni that funds sex education and English classes in Ghana). She's organising students going over to Ghana to teach, so if you fancy doing something different this summer, come along and chat to her. Email [email protected] for tickets or details.

13.02.2004: Print/Medical. Please read this sensible report on last year's Westminster News Online project by Harry Keegan (pictured), now of the Hendon Times and the The Lawyer magazine. Good tips on how to do well on the project, and an excellent example of the sort of report you will have to write at the end, for assesment purposes.

12.02.2004: Re: PG Dip Print. Geoffrey Davies has been in touch to say how much he enjoyed teaching the PGDip Print course for TV Production (orientation) and the high standard you all achieved. However he was rather disappointed to find out that much of the equipment was returned in a poor state, no attempt having been made to stow it safely in the boxes and cables left attached. He asks that you take more care of the equipment which is expensive and needs care.

12.02.2004: PG Print and BA Medical - Re: WNOL we will be meeting at 10am on Monday in "Crit Room 3" (the 'proper' newsroom), so be there at 9.45 at the latest and for godsake read the papers and bring them with you (I mean, how else are we going to get stories - ESP?). Please ensure that you have the briefing document and poked around last year's site, track down the triumphant Mouse Infestation Scandal - a genuine 100% scoop and very much a fully functioning perfect scale model of a massive, breaking national news story (done by the fantastically good Elsa McLaren

For further inspiration on the sort of fiercely local news reporting we are after check out the Framley Examiner which has perfectly written made up stories - very good for learning style. For a retrospective look at the value of "Vox Pops" (as discussed at the de-brief of AV reports) check out On the Hour (search within the document for "It's Your Mouth"). Remember to forward, also, work attachment reports (about half are in now). Remember to have a look at the Virtual Newsroom, if you have time, and e-mail me any comments.

12.02.2004: Felicity Keane at the Periodicals Training Council (PTC) writes: "Please find at this link a job ad which may be of interest to you students. A & S Publishing are willing to wait for the right candidate to finish their studies and so hopefully this will be of interest to many of your students".

11.02.2004: The prototype of the "virtual newsroom" (endless free news writing, sub-editing, sound and AV news production when complete) is now available at this link or via the graphic link in the top righthand corner of this page. Please e-mail comments or sighting of beta-glitches (errors) to Chris Horrie. A small budget is being put together for the development of the VN concept and some students may wish to get involved with that... work will include voicing scenarios, writing scripts, creating HTML pages and filming/presenting short (simulated) news items. More news later...

... Also on the development front Geoffrey Davies reports that the "new" smaller scale (ie modern) TV news studio now looks "almost certain" to be commissioned before or during Easter which means we will be able to far more live news presentation practice than before, and far more than promised or set out in the course handbook. So we continue to go from strength to strength.

11.02.2004: Next guest lecture at Harrow campus will be Helen Boaden (pictured), the director of BBC Radio Four. She will be speaking at 5pm on Wednesday, February 18th in one of the lecture theatres (to be announced). Should be fascinating in the wake of Hutton and the "doing in" of Greg Dyke.

10.02.2004: There will be a viewing of all PG Dip (Print) and Medical Journalism TV/video journalism (filmed) reports tomorrow (Wednesday 11 Feb)in room A4.3 (A-block) from 2pm - 5pm. All students welcome and PG Broadcast might find it useful as a preview of part of what will happen after Easter.

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