What is PA Media Centre Experience?

PA Media Centre Experience is a six-week project designed to fit in with the educational needs of students aged between 14 and 19 years old.

The course starts with a pre-briefing for students and teachers at their school or college.

The exact programme and content is decided by each school. For six weeks students become journalists. They investigate and write up their own stories, take their own pictures and prepare to produce the eight-page paper.

During this time they have free access to PA Mediapoint - the news feed taken by National and Regional newspapers round the country.

Many schools find that during the six weeks it is useful to meet at lunch or after school once a week. Other schools fit the project into their timetable.

For the final two days students work in the wonderful environment of the 13th century Bishop’s Manor in Howden or PA's London centre in Vauxhall Bridge Road. Both have a fully equipped training centre used by professional journalists.

The students receive a brief introduction to working with the software they will use to design and layout their pages – Adobe InDesign – a successful new contender for industry standard.

During the previous six weeks students should have written (or collected) their stories and photographs, which they either bring with them on the day on CD roms or Memory sticks, or email in advance.

Depending on numbers, students work in pairs or groups on each page, perhaps with an editor or production editor overseeing the whole project.

The day starts with a news conference to decide on how the pages will be laid out. Everyone then designs their own page using the templates which are provided.

 

One of the exciting things is that students have access to all of the tools that the professionals use – including our archive of literally millions of photographs. Students can also see their own photographs on the page helping them to illustrate their stories.

The design and layout of the eight page paper usually takes up most of the two days although the course also includes a conducted tour of PA's modern Operating Centre, including, in Howden, a visit to the state-of-the-art video studio.

Towards the end of the second day the pages are printed to our colour proofer and the students and teachers can check them and make any alterations.

Finally, the pages are reprinted and the school or college takes a copy for checking by the head of department. PA will also take a set of proofs to make sure that there are no legal issues with your stories.

Any corrections can be made a few days later over the phone.

The final version of the pages are then be sent to a printer who will print and deliver the newspaper to your school or college within a fortnight – looking just like the “real thing”.

 

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