NEWS INTERVIEW
- 230 candidates;
- 139 passed - 60 per cent

The April 2006 interview was about a teenage boy who had suffered serious head injuries after being the victim of a 'happy slapping' attack in the grounds of his school.

The head teacher was able to give a detailed account of how the boy and his twin brother had been assaulted while a teenage girl – part of a four-strong gang – filmed the incident on a mobile phone. A vivid picture of what had happened and how the boy was being treated in hospital was available to those candidates who conducted a thorough and logical interview.

Markers were looking for good use of dynamic verbs and adjectives to convey the drama, a key quote high in the story followed by a strong, logical approach with a mix of accurate quotes and reported speech. There were many examples of this type of good writing and candidates should be applauded for this.

Candidates are requested to write in the style of their own newspaper and markers took into account that some editors would drop the 'happy slapping' tag into the second or third par. Nevertheless, those candidates who did not refer to 'happy slapping' until much lower in the story, or did not give a brief explanation of the terminology, were heavily penalised.

Markers took a neutral approach to the presentation of the term (happy slapping, happy-slapping, 'happy slapping', happy slap) but penalised candidates who were inconsistent.

It was impossible to incorporate all the information made available but there were many good reports which included some, if not all, the other key facts in the story: details about the victim (he was a twin, a chess champion, in a critical but stable condition in intensive care and his parents were at his bedside), a concise but vivid summary of the attack with reference to a similar less serious assault minutes earlier, the description of the attackers, and reference to previous 'happy slapping' attacks at the school last year.

There was a wide selection of emotive quotes available to a thorough interviewer and full, verbatim quotes well placed through the story were required although minor variations were not penalised.

The Autumn 2005 Examiners' Report highlighted the problems of candidates taking a superficial and scattergun approach to the interview. It was encouraging to note this appeared to be less of a problem in April 2006, but there were still a number of candidates who interrupted their interviewee and generally failed to listen to what they were being told. Some candidates also showed little interest in the victim as a person – the very information that would engage the reader.

Interviewing technique is the cornerstone of good reporting and editors need to continue to give on-the-job support to maintain standards of this vital skill.