[2] The NCTJ is a charity for all media with a professional awarding body recognised by Ofqual, Qualification Wales and CCEA Northern Ireland, an accreditation board, Student Council, focus groups and forums, and the annual Journalism Skills Conference.
[3] NCTJ alumni include Mark Austin, Piers Morgan, Kay Burley, John Inverdale, Reshmin Chowdhury, Geordie Greig and Helen Skelton.
[8] To be eligible to sit the NQJ, candidates must have achieved the gold standard in the Diploma in Journalism and have undertaken a period of 18 months' full-time employment on a newspaper or news agency.
[11] This was however unsuccessful and in the next sitting of the seniors' exam, the NCTJ actually blew the town up, using a series of deadly explosions as the backdrop for the news report section of the paper.
The 2012 survey found that social class still affects the likelihood of someone entering the profession and that there was a “slight reduction” of working journalists compared to the previous decade.