Established 1962 Founded 1962 | Location Preston, UK Academic staff 70 | |
The School of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Central Lancashire is one of the UK's longest established centres of journalism teaching, growing out of the Harris College, Preston.
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Undergraduate and postgraduate courses are accredited by the Broadcast Journalism Training Council, the National Council for the Training of Journalists and the Periodicals Training Council, the training arm of the Periodical Publishers Association.
The University of Central Lancashire has received positive coverage of its academic standards in journalism, with The Times opining, in 2008, that "It is acknowledged as one of the leading centres for the teaching of journalism in Britain".
In 2010, the University won the Broadcast Journalism Training Council's award for general excellence.
History
The School of Journalism, Media and Communication grew out of the Harris College, Preston, which launched its first print journalism course in 1962. The college later became part of Preston Polytechnic. In 1982, the first postgraduate diploma in Broadcast Journalism was launched with support from the BBC and ITV, followed by a postgraduate diploma in Newspaper Journalism. The undergraduate degree in journalism was launched in 1991 before the polytechnic became the University of Central Lancashire.
The School now includes six divisions. They are Journalism, Film and Media Studies, Media Technology, Language and Linguistics, Literature and Cultures, and Media Practice.
Faculty
The Head of the School is Mike Ward, a former BBC journalist and author of "Journalism Online".
Honorary Fellows include Mark Thompson, Richard Frediani (Head of News at Granada), Lucy Meacock, Kate Adie, Anna Ford and Fiona Armstrong.
A notable feature of the School is the Harris lecture series, which regularly brings senior media figures to Preston, including Jon Snow, Janet Street-Porter, Simon Kelner, The Independent editor Chris Blackhurst, Evening Standard editor Geordie Greig, Kim Fletcher, Stephen Mitchell (journalist) and Andrew Jennings.