THREE sixth form pupils from Okehampton College are heading for a career in the media after their success in a competition run by Carlton Television.

Laura Monkman, 18, Mark Whitehead,17 and Ziggy Mwenitete, 16, won first prize in the senior category of the 2000 Careers and Carlton competition. Their news report which went out on Westcountry Live recently has received much acclaim.

The competition was part of Carlton's education-business link initiative run in conjunction with Business in the Community, in which members of Carlton's staff visit 30 schools throughout the region each year to give pupils an insight into careers in television.

Pupils were invited to report on an issue affecting the region using either illustrations, storyboards or video camera footage.

The Okehampton students interviewed people in their home town about the opening of Waitrose and its effect on the small shopkeeper and submitted a short video for the contest.

Managing director of Carlton Mark Haskell said the youngsters' entry demonstrated a real feel for television and they were the clear winners.

The prize for the students was a week's work experience at the Plymouth headquarters to produce their report for Westcountry Live.

Mark Whitehead said, after developing the story and conducting more interviews, they went to a studio in Torquay to edit the report with the help of professionals.

'We had a lot of material and one of the trickiest things was condensing it all into a one minute and 30 second report,' he said.

'The TV company received several calls from viewers after the show saying how impressed they were so we must have done okay.'

Mark said it was a brilliant experience and the team also got to read the news and do the weather.

'Journalism is something I want to do as a career and this is an excellent platform for the future,' added Mark, who plans to apply for a media course at Bournemouth in October.

This is the second year Carlton has run the competition and aims to repeat it again next year — there is also a section for pupils in Years 7-11.