NEWS REPORT
– 233 candidates;
- 149 passed – 64 per cent

The second of the new-style News Report offered a genuine challenge of candidates' reporting ability.

Many of them proved more than equal to the task, and it was pleasing to see a good number of reports that displayed a high degree of competence.

News Report provides candidates with several sources of information and asks them to combine these to produce a story of about 300 words.

On this occasion the scenario involved a struggling football club, Blackley United, that announced an £80m development of its Norland Park ground and surrounding 21 acres.

This ambitious project included a new stadium capable of hosting national events, three new stands, hotel, conference centre, leisure facilities and, interestingly, a link with the NHS to provide rented accommodation for 300 key health workers and also space for dentistry and physiotherapy services.

Almost all the information about the scheme was given to candidates as part of their briefing notes, which also included a potted history of the football club.

They were then invited to attend a fictitious champagne reception for business leaders and council and health officials to launch the development plan, and report on a rallying speech given by the football club's development director, Arthur (Anthea if a woman speaker) Robinson.

The speech stressed the importance of the scheme to Blackley as a whole and called for financial support towards the £80m cost.

The speech was brimming with strong and emotive quotes and the real test for candidates was to select the best of these and use them effectively alongside the factual information they had been given.

Although the scenario had a strong sporting flavour this was by no means a sports story as such, although one candidate obviously thought so by using the availability of cash for new players as his intro ahead of the main development at the club.

It was pleasing to see that so many candidates came through with flying colours, providing reports that showed a clear understanding of the subject and which were written in a clear and well-structured manner.

If they are reproducing this form in their offices every week their editors must be very happy! Sadly, this standard was not reflected across the full complement of candidates.

There was absolutely no excuse for not including all the main details of the Blackley United scheme since these were offered in advance as a list of bullet points.

The canny candidates simply reproduced the list, but why did others ignore some of the points and provide readers with an incomplete picture of what was proposed? Story structure seemed to trouble a number of candidates, who scattered the salient facts around or relegated them to the end of their stories.

Some even failed to spot the £80m cost of the scheme as obvious intro material.

The significance of the health service link was not given sufficient prominence in numerous papers although this was a ground-breaking initiative that deserved to be high up in the story.

News Report is not a shorthand test, although many candidates make life difficult for themselves by taking verbatim rather than selective notes and then run into difficulties with transcription.

Some papers were littered with examples of this, but if candidates had thought more about what they were writing these could have been avoided.

Of more significance was the failure in a good number of cases to make best use of the emotive speech material, thus depriving an interesting development story of colour and life.

All the candidates who did well took full advantage of what the speech had to offer and reflected its upbeat content.

News Report is a good all-round test of reporters' skills.

Pass and fail statistics do not tell the whole story for they disguise the success stories as well as the failures, but behind the figures there is reason for optimism as numerous young men and women proved their competence and writing ability.

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