Harriet Rose-Gale with her award, and Adam Lee-Potter left

BU BA Multi-Media journalism graduate Harriet Rose-Gale, 21, won the Dorset Journalist of the year award.

Utilising her work done as Deputy News Editor for student newspaper The Rock, Harriet’s winning entry was her report about the desperate measures cash strapped students are taking to afford university, including stripping and medical testing.

Despite her heavy involvement with journalism during her studies Harriet did not expect to win,

“I wasn’t expecting to win at all, it was a lovely surprise! Especially as I have started a new job as a features writer at Caters News Agency in Birmingham.”

The award was sponsored by the National Union of Journalists. The chairman of the judges, Neil Duncan-Jordan, said there was an impressive number of entries and huge variety of subjects covered.

Guest speaker Adam Lee-Potter joined students and lecturers at the award ceremony in Weymouth House at BU, championing the wonderful opportunities offered by a career in journalism. His own reporting exploits included being punched by actress Barbara Windsor and seeing the magician Paul Daniels naked.

As well as winning a shiny trophy and £150 prize money during her time at BU Harriet has produced a varied array of stories such as a front page exclusive interview with Wikkileaks founder Julian Assange for The Bournemouth Rock, whom she was able to approach through BU lecturer Matthew Charles film about the dictatorship in Belarus.

“Assange had provided the diplomatic cables on Belarus to Mathew so was happy to support the film. I just walked up to him and asked him if it was ok to ask him a few questions. He was more than happy to talk to me, especially as I was writing my dissertation on WikiLeaks’ disclosure of the Iraq War Logs.”