On Wednesday evening at ITV Studios, a packed room watched as 29-year old Toby Winson, a builder from Kent, was crowned Breaking into News winner 2019.
The competition, which Media Trust delivers in partnership with ITV, gives ten aspiring journalists the chance to create a news report with the help of their very own ITV regional news team.
Toby, our finalist for ITV Meridian, beat off stiff competition to win with his news report on educating school children about the dangers of alcohol, something he personally feels strongly about after overcoming his own battle with alcohol addiction.
You can watch Toby’s report below, which he made with the support of his mentor ITV Meridian Journalist, Chloe Oliver. Sharing his experience, Toby said: “Chloe has guided me through the process and shared amazing advice, and along with everyone else at Meridian, could not have been nicer and more welcoming.”
Toby's winning report on educating school children about the dangers of alcohol.
The nationwide competition, now in its eighth year, aims to promotes diversity in the broadcast journalism industry and discover new voices which aren’t usually found in UK news rooms. Speaking at the event, ITV’s Director of News, Michael Jermey said, “At ITV News, we want our workforce to be diverse, in every sense of the word. Over the last decade we’ve worked hard to make this happen and one element of that has been the fantastic partnership we’ve had with Media Trust to encourage people to take their first venture into broadcast journalism.”
At ITV News we want our workforce to be diverse, in every sense of the word.
Michael Jermey, Director of News, ITV
Jermey went on to highlight the success the competition has had in producing journalists, with 14 out of the 20 Breaking into News finalists from the past two years now either working in newsrooms (many at ITV), or in journalism training.
The finalists share their experience of the competition with our host, Media Trust's Head of Youth Media, Jasmine Dotiwala.
Media Trust’s Project Manager, Mairi Ankers said: “This year’s finalists were all extremely passionate about the topics they chose to report on and this really shines through in their final news pieces. It’s been incredible watching them progress through the competition and they should all be very proud of what they’ve achieved.”
You can watch our ten finalists reports on Media Trust’s YouTube channel, including our two runners up, Katie Orchard for ITV London and Mariah Sharp for ITV Anglia.
As the overall winner of the competition, Toby’s report will be broadcast on ITV and he will also receive £400 worth of journalistic equipment.
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