BRIEFING

New era for the Editorial Centre

The Editorial Centre in Hastings has been rebranded Press Association Training as it continues to expand it range of editorial training services.

This move allows us to develop the courses and programmes we offer you in four centres - Howden, Newcastle, London and Hastings - and to call on the considerable expertise that exists in PA as well as in the Editorial Centre and the Newcastle centre.

PA recently took over the operation of the journalism training centre owned by Trinity Mirror in Newcastle, with Trinity Mirror becoming a major long-term customer.

The deal underlined PA’s ambitions to become the leading provider of media training. In 2004 PA acquired a 50 per cent stake in the training and consultancy company, The Editorial Centre, based in Hastings and has established training centres in London and Howden, East Yorkshire.

Trinity Mirror’s 16-week foundation course in journalism has been merged with The Editorial Centre foundation course. The courses are widely recognised as the leading in-company training schemes in the UK.

Trinity Mirror has signed a long-term contract for the provision of editorial training services from PA and will take up a significant allocation of places on each foundation course, as well as having access to other PA/Editorial Centre services.

Under the terms of the deal, the training centre will remain in the offices of the Newcastle Chronicle, Journal and Sunday Sun. The training centre staff will become employees of PA.

This follows the move of Trinity Mirror’s former head of editorial staff development, Tony Johnston, to PA in the summer. He became PA’s head of editorial training in August, leading the company’s expansion of multimedia training services.

Peter Sands, Director of Press Association Training, said: “This is another big step in establishing PA as the leading media training provider in the country.

“The rebranding was a natural next step in our development and we are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead.”

Press Association Training has a huge range of training courses offering with programmes being run for several national newspapers, large regional groups in the UK and companies in Ireland and the Channel Islands.

It is successfully moving into the world of web-based media with its unique video journalism programme which is retraining print journalists as video-based story tellers.