Sports Journalism Apprenticeship (Simon Greenberg Scholarship)

Summary

The successful applicant will complete a part-time NCTJ course and receive on the job training, mentoring and guidance from award-winning journalists at The Times and The Sunday Times. You’ll learn everything we can teach you about how to create engaging sport content, how to tell and share stories, and how to attract, grow and capture an audience.

Annual wage: £25,000 a year
Minimum wage rates (opens in new tab)
Training course: Journalist (level 5)
Hours: Times may vary.
37 hours a week
Possible start date: Monday 6 January
Duration: 2 Years
Positions available: 1

Work

As an apprentice, you’ll work at a company and get hands-on experience. You’ll gain new skills and work alongside experienced staff.

What you’ll do at work

Create engaging sport content
How to tell and share stories
How to attract, grow and capture an audience.

Where you’ll work

1 London Bridge Street

London

SE1 9GF

Training

An apprenticeship includes regular training with a college or other training organisation. At least 20% of your working hours will be spent training or studying.

College or training organisation

THE PRESS ASSOCIATION LIMITED

Your training course

Journalist (level 5)

Equal to higher national diploma (HND)

Course contents

Undertake research before reporting to ensure that journalistic content/material published or broadcast is accurate, impartial, balanced, engages the audience and is verifiable with industry standard use of English.

Identify, select, and verify multiple sources of information, including people, reports, data and social media, cross-checking and corroborating when necessary.

Take accurate, relevant notes when and where needed, use shorthand where required by your employer.

Assess the strengths/weaknesses of available platforms and where and when journalistic content is likely to work best.

Assess and produce journalistic content in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements; ethical issues and organisational specifications, alerting senior managers when necessary.

Make decisions and judgements at speed and when under pressure, on the way stories are researched and presented, aiming to lead when breaking news.

Find and use contacts to create journalistic content and exclusive stories which meet the needs of the target audience. Verify information from contacts and critically review its short and long-term implications.

Use audience analytics to evaluate the success of the journalistic content and how that can inform future decision-making.

Monitor relevant social media on a systematic basis. Proactively seek, verify and curate sources of user-generated content that will help improve targeted content, grow the audience and the depth of engagement.

Produce journalistic content using language which resonates with the audience as measured by audience analytics, social media interaction and reach or other internal "tools" used by employers to understand audience sentiment.

Produce journalistic content in multimedia combinations as required which "draw in" the viewer/listener/user to tell the complete story.

Report live to the audience from the scene of an event using remote technologies.

Publish journalistic content, using all available tools to enhance the user experience.

Undertake different types of interviews to extract information, identifying and selecting the right interviewing technique to suit the interviewee and seeking to make a connection with the subject.

Evaluate answers from interviewees to inform further questioning, probing for detail and inconsistencies in replies given. If needed, identify other people to speak to.

Check and evaluate own work in relation to industry standards, adhering to employer guidelines. Ensure it is of a quality to maintain the organisation's reputation in the industry.

Seek constructive feedback from relevant people about your performance; taking action as required.

Consider the impact of equality and diversity practices on individuals and groups and ensure those practices are inclusive.

Locate, clean and interrogate datasets to inform content generation.

Your training plan

This training plan has not been finalised. Check with this employer if you’ll need to travel to a college or training location for this apprenticeship.

Requirements

Essential qualifications

GCSE in:

English (grade 4)
Maths (grade 4)

Let the company know about other relevant qualifications and industry experience you have. They can adjust the apprenticeship to reflect what you already know.

Skills

Communication skills
Attention to detail
Creative

About this company

One of the leading media businesses in the UK and Ireland. Our newsbrands include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday and The TLS. Our national broadcast brands include talkSPORT, Times Radio, Talk and Virgin Radio UK, and we have market-leading local radio stations across Ireland. Our world-famous brands provide news, analysis, opinion and entertainment to almost 40 million people each month. Spanning print and pixel, audio and video, events and experiences, our multiplatform brands are home to a plurality of opinion, representing the diverse communities we serve. News UK is wholly owned by News Corp. Simon Greenberg was one of the youngest sports editors in Fleet Street history. This two-year apprenticeship with The Times Sport seeks to give an opportunity to someone with a similar tenacity, creativity and passion for sports journalism as our beloved friend and former colleague. Simon made his name as a young reporter on the Mail on Sunday, breaking one of the biggest stories in the history of British sport. George Graham was a major force in football management, winning six trophies in eight seasons at Arsenal. But he was fired at Highbury in 1995 after Simon exposed the fact that Graham had accepted a £425,000 bung from a Norwegian agent, Rune Hauge, as part of a transfer deal three years earlier. It was an award-winning story that would launch Simon’s journalism career aged 25. Soon after he became the sports editor of the London Evening Standard. Later, he became director of communications and public affairs at Chelsea in 2004, working alongside Jose Mourinho during that extraordinary period of success at Stamford Bridge. From there he became Director of Corporate Affairs at what was then News International, before taking on the role of head of corporate development at The Athletic. Simon died in August 2021 after a short illness. He was 52 with a young family. This bursary is in his honour, aimed at supporting the successful candidate in becoming a sports news reporter with the same drive and passion Simon brought to the job.

Disability Confident

A fair proportion of interviews for this apprenticeship will be offered to applicants with a disability or long-term health condition. This includes non-visible disabilities and conditions.

You can choose to be considered for an interview under the Disability Confident scheme. You’ll need to meet the essential requirements to be considered for an interview.

After this apprenticeship

The future perspective for this role is bright. As an apprentice, you'll gain diverse skills, setting the path for a potential permanent position.

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