[cma-l] New teaching pack for students launched by Sky News

[CMA-L]

Sky News is launching a new classroom pack designed to be a study aid
to media students and teachers in schools and colleges across the UK.

The pack, launched online and sent out to all the educational
facilities teaching media courses in 2008/09, is designed with 14-18
year olds in mind and aims to inform, educate and inspire any students
interested in any aspect of a career in media – or who just want to
know more about what Sky News does and how it does it.

As the UK's first dedicated 24-hour news channel, Sky News has built a
reputation for being first to break major news, consistently
outperforming the competition and winning more awards since its launch
than any other news channel.

The pack brings to life those achievements and gives users an in-depth
insight to and understanding of what goes into making award winning
news output, what it takes to run a 24 hour news organisation and just
how many diverse roles and opportunities exist within multi media,
multi-platform news delivery, as pioneered by Sky News.

Highlights from the pack include:

Top Tips, such as tips for getting into journalism, and specific tips
for television, radio or web journalism.

Activity boxes and study areas, suggesting outlines for group or
individual work – these can also provide homework activities or can
help to form the basis of lesson plans in specific areas of
journalism.

Information and explanations about Sky News' Active, Radio and Mobile
services – how they work, who might want to use them, and what you
have to consider when developing new news services for different media
platforms.

Detailed breakdowns of the different specialist areas Sky News covers,
such as Business, Sports and Showbiz.

A virtual newsroom section which explains how the newsroom at Sky is
organised, and some of the jobs which might be within reach of young
graduates and people just starting their careers in news.

An overview of the technology involved in getting Sky News pictures
back to the news centre and then onto TV screens – the pack contains
information about how pictures are sent from some of the most remote
and hostile environments in the world and what, as a viewer, you need
to be able to watch Sky News.

An overview of one of Sky News' special themed days and how output is
created for all the various Sky News platforms on the same topic on
the same day – convergence explained!

An explanation of who Sky News presenters and correspondents are, and
their specialist areas.

A brief introduction into the importance of media law as well as an
overview of specific regulations that relate to broadcast news.

Useful contacts and suggestions for next steps for those students
interested in pursuing a career in journalism.

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Rob Kirk, Editorial Development Manager for Sky News said: "Sky News
has been at the sharp edge of British news for nearly 20 years –
longer than most of the people we are targeting with this pack have
been alive – but we are constantly introducing new ways of
distributing news by using the very latest technology and the
brightest and best editorial ideas.

"We want to try to help young people to learn as much as they can
about Sky News, to provide useful and thought provoking material for
both students and teachers, and to hopefully inspire and encourage
budding young journalists out there to pursue what we think is one of
the most exciting and rewarding careers you could hope for. "

The schools pack is available free of charge and can be downloaded from:

http://explorer.jointhebiggerpicture.com/videos/pgArticleSchoolsPack.aspx

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For more information please contact:

Charlotte Dixon
Publicity Manager
Sky News

T - 020 7800 4341
M - 07824 824834