An award-winning financial journalist and law lecturer is to become the latest recruit to Strathclyde University’s new masters’ course in journalism.

Francis Shennan, who continues to work as a freelance financial writer, is joining the course as its lecturer in media law.

A law graduate of Edinburgh University, he has already lectured in media law at Napier, Strathclyde and Glasgow Caledonian Universities.

He also runs his own one-day courses for qualified journalists, which have been used by Associated Newspapers, Johnston Press and the NUJ.

Said Francis: “Those one-day courses are called ‘Real Law for Journalists’ because I teach them from the journalist’s point of view.

“I don’t teach how to keep stories out the paper – I teach how to get them in but without ending up in court. I intend to follow a similar approach with the masters. My aim is not just to get them through their exams but also to make them valuable and reliable journalists afterwards.”

The new course at Strathclyde’s School of Journalism and Communication is one of four new masters’ degrees being launched following the ending of the partnership between Strathclyde and Glasgow Caledonian University in the Scottish Centre for Journalism Studies.

The others are investigative journalism, international journalism and literary journalism.

Students on the investigative journalism course will attend the first semester’s law classes on the NCTJ-accredited journalism masters.

“Given how fast some areas of the law are moving, I think they’ll find the classes useful and interesting,” added Francis.