Published on 12 June 2017
Carole Watson, senior lecturer in media law at the University of Sunderland, has been appointed to the esteemed National Council for Training of Journalists' (NCTJ) Media Law Examinations Board.
Made up of media law experts and academics from across the UK, the NCTJ’s Media Law Examinations Board is an influential and prestigious panel that advises and directs the essential content of study programmes on media law and court reporting and also set, mark and moderate all exams in these subjects. This mandatory content must be included in NCTJ accredited courses, such as the University of Sunderland’s suite of journalism programmes. The Board, which meets biannually, also oversees and manages all training workshops for NCTJ accredited centres.
Carole has been teaching media law at the University of Sunderland for the last six years, joining the North East institution after a career as a journalist on the Daily Mirror, Grazia and News of the World, among others; she was invited to join the board earlier this month by NCTJ chief executive Joanne Butcher.
All Sunderland’s journalism programmes, BA (Hons) Journalism, Magazine Journalism, Sports Journalism, Fashion Journalism and Broadcast Journalism are accredited by the NCTJ, as are the University’s Post Graduate journalism courses.
Carole commented on her appointment: “I’m honoured and flattered to be invited by the NCTJ to join the media law examinations board. It’s nearly 30 years since I gained my NCTJ qualifications as a teenager, and they are still nationally and internationally recognised as being the absolute benchmark in setting high journalistic standards and ensuring students are armed with crucial employability skills.
"I absolutely love teaching media law subjects such as libel, privacy, copyright and contempt of court to all our undergraduate and postgraduate journalism students. It is invaluable knowledge for all journalists, not only to stay out of legal trouble but to equip them with the ability and confidence to still expose wrongdoing and break important public interest stories.
"I look forward to my first board meeting, which will be chaired by Mark Hanna - the co-author of the definitive media law text McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists - later this month and the opportunity to be involved in important decisions on the direction of media law teaching in future. And I hope my involvement will also help inform and improve my own teaching of media law so our students here at Sunderland can benefit from the very latest thinking and skills needed in this key area of study."