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Sadly it was a minority that spotted the real danger here was of an offence of inciting racial hatred under the Public Order Act 1986. The call for sealing up the Channel Tunnel and the repatriation of asylum seekers was said by some to be 'a breach of the PCC guidelines on race reporting'. Only a few appreciated that the speaker's opinions could all be safely reported if paraphrased to avoid the use of words that were threatening, abusive or insulting. However, such views did not have to be covered because there was a legal requirement on editors to print a balanced account of all party manifestos - which was quoted as the law by several trainees who obviously don't read the Mail or Mirror.

Only a minority of those tackling question two failed to appreciate the significance of last year's House of Lords decision in McCarten Turkington Breen... even if the majority didn't get a bonus mark for being able to quote the case. The important point here was that reports of press conferences (to which the press at large has been invited) are now afforded the same protection as those reports of public meetings as defined in the 1996 Defamation Act. (One candidate correctly quoted from the speech of Lord Bingham in the case but rather spoiled his answer by suggesting 'this ruling now needs to be tested in the courts'). Several candidates showed their ignorance of the media's statutory qualified privilege where reports are subject to a right of reply. Too many were willing to give a right of reply to allegations they had yet to publish and clearly indicated that they would incorporate what was said outside the meeting with what was said as part of proceedings.

Candidates were required to tackle two of the remaining three questions.The topical Public Affairs question (question three) was based on the changes to the Careers Service which in the month of the examination, and following a major Government publicity campaign was relaunching under the name of Connections.

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