NEWSQUEST Media Group, which publishes The Northern Echo and its sister paper The Darlington & Stockton Times, is celebrating editorial training successes.

Trainee journalists sitting the National Certificate, the newspaper industry's qualification examination, scored a 100 per cent pass rate, bucking a national figure of just over a 30 per cent pass rate - believed to be the lowest result rate for 30 years.

Newsquest Media Group takes the training of its journalists very seriously, not just preparing its juniors for a career in traditional newspaper journalism, but ensuring they receive training to help them flourish in a multi-media society.

Less than two years ago, Newsquest Media Group introduced its Diploma in Journalism and got together with Darlington College of Technology's School of Journalism to provide not just the syllabus of the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) but to add on extra modules including sub-editing, photography, the Internet, sport, and numeracy.

The 20-week tailored course, which includes the NCTJ preliminary examinations, is followed by workshops leading to a three-day refresher course prior to sitting the NCE.

The first Newsquest/Darlington College Diploma in Journalism cohort to go through the Newsquest diploma training programme to the NCE have all passed at their first attempt.

One trainee, Alison Lewis, of The Darlington & Stockton Times, scooped two of the major prizes - the award for Best Newspaper Practice paper as well as the Eric Dobson Memorial Award for the highest scoring student in the North-East.

Newsquest's group editorial manager, Margaret Strayton, said: "These excellent results demonstrate Newsquest's commitment to training well-prepared and committed journalists, who can not only write, but who also have a good understanding of the publishing business."

Newsquest, which is owned by US media giant Gannett, is one of the biggest regional newspaper groups in England and Wales with 300 titles, including 15 dailies and a weekly circulation/distribution of 10.6 million copies.