BBC unveil News Sponsorship Scheme

The BBC have launched their News Sponsorship Scheme for 2003, designed to attract new and diverse talent into BBC News around the UK, while enabling students to fund their post-graduate course at a time when higher education is becoming increasingly expensive.
The scheme, now in its fourth year, awards around 14 students full funding for their Broadcast Journalism Training Council (BJTC) accredited post-graduate diplomas in broadcast journalism, plus bursaries to help with living expenses during their course. Each student is also allocated a senior BBC journalist as a mentor, and is offered four weeks paid work experience in an area of network news.
Richard Sambrook, BBC's director of news, said: "News is one of the fastest growing and most competitive areas of the broadcast industry.
"As well as an increasing number of news programmes and channels, there is also a proliferation of new technology being introduced to news production which is rapidly changing the face of the industry. It is crucial, therefore, that we recruit the best people to drive this news revolution, and the News Sponsorship Scheme is one of the ways in which the BBC can do this.
"News programmes serve every community across the UK, so it is important that we recruit widely to make sure our trainees and staff reflect a wide range of backgrounds and experience."
(GB)