A journalism student landed a front page scoop at a regional daily after finding a story for her coursework.

Nottingham Trent University MA news journalism student Irene Bisoni landed the exclusive for the Nottingham Post while preparing for a work experience stint at the newspapers.

Irene’s splash told the story of the death of father-of-four Stephen Holleworth, whose van was hit by a lorry in Suffolk.

She discovered a post by Mr Hollesworth’s family on a community Facebook page and secured an interview with them.  Irene then pitched the story to Post editor Natalie Fahy who decided it was worthy of the front page.

Irene, who has also recently started a role with Reach plc’s Google Showcase team alongside her studies, said: “I feel very proud to have landed a splash so quickly.

“It was not an easy story to tell but I’m very pleased that the Holleworth family liked the article.”

Added Natalie: “We are always happy to support students as they prepare to work in their first professional journalism role.

“We see them as an extension of our own team and we’re always happy to have them pitch stories to us – or as in this case, make the front page splash.”

Nottingham Trent University MA news journalism course leader Jonny Greatrex added: “It is fantastic our students get to work with Natalie’s team as part of their newsweek, but we did not expect to have a student story published so quickly.

“This was our first prep session building our newslists ready to pitch to Natalie next week, but instead Irene landed a splash. It was a tragic story that she handled sensitively.

“Our thoughts are with the Holleworth family at such a difficult time.”