Tom Dinh (front) and Karan Pratap Singh from the Breaker teamBU students picked up first prize at this year’s Broadcast Journalism Training Council awards.
The Breaker, which is run entirely by Multimedia Journalism students, won the Best Newsday Website award at the ceremony in London on 20 November.
Winners of the Broadcast Journalism Training Council (BJTC) awards, which recognise excellence in journalism training, were selected from entries by more than 3,000 journalism students around the UK.
The students’ award is in recognition of the special feature “Living with AI”, which explores how artificial intelligence is rapidly changing so many aspects of daily life – from the intimacy of dating apps to the logic of legal systems, and how charities and religious organisations are using new technologies to expand their reach.
Isabel Gallagher“I’m honestly over the moon to have won,” said co-editor Isabel Gallagher, “Living with AI was a project we all worked hard on, so to have it recognised nationally means a lot. I hadn’t really seen myself in a leadership role before, so sharing the editorship with Tom Dinh was both a challenge and an opportunity. The experience has given me confidence I didn’t expect.”
Torquil Hopper from the Breaker team added, “To be one cog in a tightly knit team and work on the special edition that we put out — it was really so special. Working on AI meant we got to produce stories that were current and connected to today’s new world. It gave us a glimpse into the slightly scary future we’re walking into.”
Hannah Clubley (left) and IsabelThis is the third time in four years that the Breaker has been successful at the BJTC awards. In 2022, BU students won an award for their reporting of the invasion of Ukraine, and last year they picked up first prize for their coverage of the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.
Chindhu Sreedharan, Professor of Journalism and Innovation at BU said, “In the Living with AI feature, the team put forward the kind of journalism we cherish on our courses - considered, collaborative, and relevant to the world around us. Our job as educators, we've always felt, is to provide the environment - and the energy – for our students to tackle complex stories that matter to people. It is extremely rewarding to see their hard work get this recognition once again.”
Torquil Hopper with Alice BhandhukraviJudges at the BJTC awards said that the Breaker had “Thought-through content which delivered a relevant, focussed body of coverage.”
Joining Isabel and Torquil on the editorial team at the Breaker this year are fellow students Tom Dinh, Hannah Clubley, and Karan Pratap Singh. They were presented with their award by BBC News presenter Alice Bhandhukravi.
