NEWSPAPER PRACTICE
– 194 candidates;
– 101 passed – 52 per cent

The 52 per cent pass rate this autumn reversed the recent upward trend in Newspaper Practice exams: 68 per cent in April 2005, 61 per cent in October 04 and 59 per cent in April 04. It’s too early to explain this but clues must lie in the mandatory media law question worth 50 marks. They had a choice from two.

One was about a chicken farmer who had supplied information to a newspaper, the Freedom of Information Act and the Poultry Board drawing up confidential guidelines for a potential outbreak of Avian Flu. In overwhelming numbers candidates gave this the bird. The rest opted to unravel the contempt and defamation dangers in a police appeal for help in tracing a named suspect.

Several guaranteed failure by confusing defamation and contempt. Others failed to mention qualified privilege and many who did had no idea how the right to reply works. Some laboriously trotted out the four guidelines that would assist a jury in deciding whether the police statement was defamatory seemingly unaware that naming a murder suspect, describing him as dangerous and warning the public not to approach him is defamatory in anyone’s definition.

More heartening is that the Attorney General’s assurance to Parliament in 1981 that newspapers have nothing to fear from contempt prosecutions when publishing police appeals might have been given only yesterday given its wide acclaim from reporters taking this exam.

Candidates had to answer two questions, each worth 25 marks, from the remaining three. One involved a town embroiled in whether to feed the pigeons or not. It was well handled but a second asking for suggestions for starting an environmental page inspired a wooden response. There was a far more imaginative riposte to the head teacher who reinstated giving lines to wayward pupils.

Although the standard was generally competent some candidates’ answers were so brief few marks could be awarded. As this is an open book exam perhaps these candidates had spent too much time on question one trying to find the relevant section in an unfamiliar McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists. Those who know the book well would find where to look quickly. Those who did not should write out 50 times: I must keep reading McNae’s Essential Law.

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