Journalism students on write lines for top awards

A trio of Sunderland journalism students are making the headlines for themselves after being shortlisted for awards, celebrating their achievements.

The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) Awards for Excellence are open to students, trainees and apprentices in news, sports, top scoop, features and multimedia categories.

Theofanis Pegkas has been nominated for a News Journalism award, Jason Button is in the Sports Journalism category, while Mariam Khattab is shortlisted in the features category.

All three students have demonstrated an outstanding body of work during their course, producing a range of excellent news stories.

As a young woman, Mariam Khattab watched revolution unfold in her native Egypt and dreamed of becoming a journalist. After moving to the UK, she graduated from Sunderland with a First Class degree and NCTJ to Gold Standard.

As part of her final project at Sunderland she produced a portfolio of work exploring human rights across the globe.

In the final year of Jason Button’s Sports Journalism undergraduate degree, his practical project was on fan culture and identity within sport - essentially the sociology of sport. This covered national identity, cultural identity, right wing and left wing fan groups.

Jason, a Mediahub intern in the Media Centre on Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St Peter’s, said: “Just to be on the final shortlist is unbelievable.”

Broadcast Journalism graduate Theofanis Pegkas, from Greece, has already picked up two prestigious Royal Television Society awards.