NEWS REPORT
– 234 candidates;
- 141 passed – 60 per cent

This NCE saw a significant change to the long-established Speech section, which was replaced by a new-style News Report.

The customary eight-minute speech – often criticised as being more akin to a shorthand test, since many candidates chose to take verbatim rather than selective notes – was reduced to a speech of five minutes duration, with greater emphasis placed on the use of background material and briefing notes supplied to the candidate immediately before the examination.

The intention was to encourage candidates to make greater use of various sources of information and to combine these to produce a competent news story – a procedure followed in newsrooms everywhere.

No problems were reported from the examination centres and in trials before the NCE, the new format received general endorsement. Successful reporting of the speech alone was insufficient to guarantee a pass since most of the factual and statistical information required was contained in the briefing notes, and thus use of both was required. The speech contained a number of pointers to encourage candidates to refer to these notes.

The scenario they were asked to report on was the annual meeting of the Byford Domestic Violence Forum, at which the chairman delivered an upbeat report on the success of a campaign to encourage more domestic violence victims to report their suffering to police. This had resulted in a six per cent rise in reported cases.

However, an alarming fact to emerge was the high number of children who were present in the home when abuse occurred between adults. The figures made for shocking reading.

A third angle to the story was the success of a specialist panel, or risk-assessment group, that had been set up to deal with specific cases of domestic violence. This had so impressed the Home Office that it was considering supporting similar panels elsewhere across the country.

In many cases the stories produced by candidates failed to reflect the success of the Forum's campaign, and the emotive angle of children becoming the innocent bystanders of domestic abuse was often relegated to an also-ran angle, or even ignored completely.

The news report offered a wide choice of strong quotes, but in many cases quotes were incomplete, fragmented or used out of context.

Most candidates understood the need to incorporate statistics etc from the fact file provided, but all too often these were copied inaccurately or were incomplete – especially the figures for the number of reported instances of domestic violence. It was insufficient to say that these had risen by six per cent without providing the detail. There was also confusion between the number of cases reported and arrests made by police.

Some candidates clearly did not read their briefing notes thoroughly and this led to many errors, especially when referring to the Domestic Violence Forum and the Domestic Violence Assessment Panel. A few cases managed to turn the story into one of child abuse . . . "200 children a month fear harm at the hands of family members" . . . "abused in their own home" . . . "violence against children". . . "200 children a month were being abused".

Other errors and omissions were: