NEWS INTERVIEW
143 candidates
93 passed

The November 2008 news interview was a human interest story about a young woman who died because a donor could not be found for the double lung transplant that would give her a chance of life.

Candidates were asked to write the story for the next day’s edition of the Duddleston Echo newspaper. The three previous news interview exams have asked candidates to write for their newspaper’s website but the decision to write this story for print reflected its exclusive nature.

The brief provided background information from two websites – UK Transplant and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust – as well as information from a friend of the young woman’s family provided by email. Candidates were asked to interview that friend, who was acting as a spokesperson for the family, and get enough information to write a vigorous and well-balanced story.

The core angle was clearly the death of a young Duddleston woman suffering from cystic fibrosis who was unable to get a double lung transplant because there are not enough donors registered in the UK.

All candidates included the death of the young woman in their intro and the majority included the transplant angle too, but a small minority got tangled up in detail and left readers scratching their heads for several paragraphs wondering why and how she had died. These candidates were penalised.

There were several ways to approach this story and candidates are clearly told to write in the style they would for their own newspaper.

Many focused on the woman, her character and her family. The majority of candidates picked up on the human interest element of her three-year-old daughter singing a nursery rhyme to her just hours before she died, but only a small number used this line to great effect very early in the story.

Other candidates focused on the campaign that was being set up to encourage people to join the organ donor register. All three of the angles were perfectly valid, but examiners were keen to see at some point all of the above areas covered in the story.

Wherever the emphasis lay, the structure of the story needed to follow a logical sequence. Examiners are always looking for candidates who demonstrate an interest in the people they are writing about.

There was plenty of information about the young woman, Andrea Holmes, her childhood sweetheart Tom Lawrence and their three-year-old daughter Alexandra, who poignantly sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in the hospital bedroom.

There were also details available about her parents, her friends and colleagues at Carpenter’s Components where she had worked, and about her mischievous character.

Most candidates covered this part of the story well but there was a worrying minority who did not take enough interest in Andrea or her family.

There was less drama in this story than in some previous news interview scenarios, but there was a definite chronology about how Andrea had become so ill and why she needed the double lung transplant. Most candidates managed to summarise this quite well.

News stories generally have a future element and this one was no exception. Examiners were keen to see a good summary of the campaign Sign Up For Andrea which was being launched by the family and friends of the young woman. All candidates covered this area to a lesser or greater degree but only the best had a tight summary of what was going to happen and why.

Examiners were, as ever, looking for at least three strong quotes – particularly an evocative key quote used early in the story to support the angle taken. Inappropriate or ineffective use of quotes – no matter how well selected – went unrewarded, or were penalised.

However, candidates who used quotes to add pace and rhythm to their stories received extra marks. A good shorthand note is required to be an effective interviewer but candidates are reminded that minor variations in quotes were not penalised.

This exam is all about the art of interviewing. The purpose is therefore to test the reporter’s core skills of questioning, note-taking and news writing. Although the interview itself is not assessed, a good technique where the reporter takes an interest in their interviewee’s story and empathises with the situation, invariably results in better copy.

Any candidate hoping to do well in the news interview exam should follow these simple guidelines: take more than a superficial interest in the interviewee and write a straightforward article with a strong intro using dynamic verbs and adjectives, a key quote early in the story followed by an organised, logical approach which includes a mix of accurate quotes and reported speech.