The Hull Daily Mail has joined forces with a new university to offer three places on a journalism degree course with the guarantee of a trainee reporter position on graduation.

The idea is to bring together expertise from the newspaper and the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside to create a stream of top-drawer local journalists.

The scholarship places on the course, three a year, are open only to people local to Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Those chosen from the 40 or so on the course each year have at least 50 days a year on work experience at the Mail.

Assistant editor Marc Astley said local people were being targeted to provide stability as they could be more likely to stay in the area than graduates from other parts of the country.

He explained: “We were concerned, like a lot of papers, about how to attract talented local people.

“We started speaking to the university and the idea developed.

“We get to choose the best three candidates and the first three will graduate this year.

“They are monitored very closely and if they don’t meet their side of the agreement there’s a question mark over whether we can take them on after their course.

“They have got to learn about the paper, our expectations, our style and the way we work.

“They are all doing brilliantly well – they were very raw when they first came here but a couple of them have had front page leads and their confidence has grown.”

The current crop include a 30-year-old former social services employee, a 19-year-old student fresh from A-levels and a 20-year-old mum.

They are now so comfortable with their new role as students/reporters that they drop into the Mail whenever they wish and get on with their work as part of the team.