Awards for our Journalism graduates who show they have the write stuff!

Journalism graduates collected awards as well as their degrees on Saturday at a celebration of three years’ hard work at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU).

The Leicester Centre for Journalism's Class of 2017 were invited to a special ceremony just before their official graduations where Ali Haynes, programme leader of DMU’s Journalism courses and Brian Dodds, deputy programme leader, praised their achievements.


Winner: Grace Morgan with Journalism programme leader Ali Haynes

Ali told them: “We are so enormously proud of you. We’ve spent three years telling you to try harder, must use that apostrophe. We are enormously proud that you have got to where you are. We have believed in you from day one and we love to be proved right!


“The course you have done is designed not just to help you get a first job, but also to equip you with the skills you need into the future.

“Whatever you go on to do should be your kind of fun. And I hope that a legacy of our course.”


Prizes were presented by Ali; John Dilley, who has just retired as programme leader of the Leicester Centre for Journalism; Tim Ince, of DMU Square Mile and Sian Brewis, media officer at DMU.

Winner of the prize for best sports reporter was Grace Morgan. It has been a great week for Grace, who won our Ultimate Graduations Prize, landed a job at DMU and now been named best sports journalist.

She said: “It’s been an amazing week! I just found out I’ll be starting work at DMU as a sports development assistant. I have really enjoyed this course, I play for the women’s football team and I’ve had the best experiences. I wrote a feature on women’s football and we got to cover a LCFC Premier League game from the press box.”

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DMU Square Mile sponsors the prize for best community reporter, which went to Beth Mosettig (pictured above with Tim Ince). She said: “It was a nice surprise, I really didn’t expect to win. I’m into local news so I think it is important to tell local stories that matter to people.”



John Dilley presented the Leicester Mercury Journalist of the Year award to Mollie Mansfield, who has just started working at Caters News Agency in Birmingham. She said: “I’m so grateful for this award. The tutors on this course have really helped me. I’ve had such a great time here, and graduating feels like I’m now actually an adult. I’ve been on Caters features desk for two months and today, I’ve got three pages leads in the national newspapers for one story.”
 


DMU’s Communications team sponsored the prize for Best Digital Reporter, which was won by Olivia Whaley, who is planning a career in Marketing and PR. She said: “It’s been so good to receive this award I totally didn’t expect it. It’s something that employers will notice.”

John, who was lecturer for the cohort’s first two years at DMU, told them: “The best thing about this job is you, the students. For us, to be able to see you grow from the first day into what you can do today is the best feeling. We are so proud of you all.”