A North-West university is preparing itself for the first intake on its first ever journalism course.

University Centre Oldham, part of the University of Huddersfield, is launching its BA (Hons) in Digital Journalism this week.

The course will be housed in a new £5m education centre, also due to begin welcoming staff and students from this week.

Aiming to be a degree for the 21st century journalist, it offers students the chance to learn online skills such as editing audio and video alongside traditional subjects including media law, interviewing skills and basic shorthand.

Other elements of the course include writing video commentary scripts, filming interviews, uploading content to the web and privacy and defamation law.

Mark Handscomb, senior lecturer and former Independent and BBC journalist, said: "The University of Huddersfield already runs some journalism degrees but this will be the first course based in Oldham.

"It's effectively a supercharged version of some of the existing courses, modified to take account of new technology.

"Journalists now in newspapers are no longer expected just to write brilliant copy – they shoot video and audio. In essence, the course is multi-skilling.

"It will enable students to work in a multi-platform environment, whether it is in television production, radio or online journalism.

"We're also going to be offering a one-year MA in Digital Journalism from January and hoping to launch a part-time, 12-week bite sized learning course in multimedia production."