Reporting and Editing Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Backpack journalism is a method where journalists carry all necessary equipment to report, edit and transmit stories.

A backpack journalist, or solo video journalist, works alone with a compact kit, typically a camera, microphone, laptop and connectivity, and does the jobs once divided among a reporter, camera operator, editor and producer, filing finished stories directly from the field. Lighter, cheaper digital equipment made this possible.

The term is not about travel: extensive international travel describes foreign correspondents, and travel and adventure writing is a genre. Working remotely from various places describes where a journalist works, not the self-sufficient multimedia method the term refers to.

Answer: C

Gatekeeping involves the process by which information is filtered for dissemination.

The concept, introduced by Kurt Lewin and applied to news by David Manning White in his 1950 study of a wire editor called 'Mr. Gates', describes how editors and reporters decide which of the many available items become news and which are left out, and how stories are shaped, shortened or emphasised on the way.

Gatekeeping is a decision-making process, not the technical process of broadcasting, the economic management of a news organisation, or the legal regulation of content, though law and economics can influence what gatekeepers choose.

Answer: C

Interpretative reporting is distinguished by providing context and analysis beyond basic facts.

Interpretative reporting goes beyond the who, what, when and where of straight news to explain the why and how: the background of an event, its causes, its significance and its likely consequences, so that readers understand what the facts mean. It grew in importance as readers needed help to make sense of complex public issues.

Providing facts without analysis describes straight or objective reporting, the opposite of interpretation. Anonymous sources can be used in any kind of reporting, and interpretative reporting is not limited to political issues; it is applied to economics, science, social issues and more.

Answer: B

One author is Stephen Quinn (printed 'Stephen Quiaun').

MOJO: The Mobile Journalism Handbook (2016) was written by Ivo Burum and Stephen Quinn. It explains how to report, shoot, edit and publish stories using a smartphone.

Bruce Westley is known for the Westley-MacLean model of communication (1957). Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt are television journalists who have written on Indian politics and reporting, not this handbook.

Answer: B

News deserts are regions with limited or no access to local news.

The term, popularised by research at the University of North Carolina, describes communities that have lost their local newspaper or never had credible local reporting, leaving residents without coverage of local government, courts and schools.

It is the opposite of areas with abundant, diverse coverage or a high concentration of outlets, and it is about the absence of local journalism, not the effect of climate change on reporting.

Answer: B

News framing is how journalists shape the presentation of a news story.

Following Erving Goffman and Robert Entman, framing means selecting some aspects of reality and making them more salient, so as to promote a particular definition of the problem, its causes, a moral judgement and a remedy. The same event can be framed as a law-and-order issue or a human-rights issue.

It is not the physical layout of a newspaper, the editing of video footage, or putting frames around photographs.

Answer: B

It is criticised for sending reporters to cover stories in areas where they have little local knowledge.

In parachute journalism a reporter is dropped into a crisis or distant place, files quickly and leaves. Critics say this produces shallow, stereotyped coverage that misses context, language and local sources.

In-depth local coverage and long-term assignments are the opposite of the practice, and its usual fault is haste rather than being over-cautious with sensitive issues.

Answer: A

The alternative is the Diamond structure.

Where the inverted pyramid puts the most important facts first and tapers off, the diamond (often linked to the Wall Street Journal formula) opens narrowly with a specific person or anecdote, widens to the larger issue and its significance, and narrows again to close on the individual.

Platinum, Gold and Silver are not names of news-writing structures; they only echo the 'shape' naming of the diamond.

Answer: B

Hyperlocal means news focused on a very specific community-level geographic area.

Hyperlocal digital outlets cover a neighbourhood, a ward, a village or a single town, reporting on matters such as civic works, local events and small businesses that larger outlets ignore.

Global and national coverage are the opposite scale. 'District level' is still broader than the hyperlocal scale, which works below the district, at the level of a community.

Answer: A

'Deep Throat' was the secret source of the reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post who investigated the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of President Nixon in 1974. The source was later revealed to be the FBI's Mark Felt.

The Irangate affair, the Profumo and Christine Keeler affair and the Mundhra scandal were reported in other ways and not through this source.

The anonymous source met Woodward in a car park in Washington and gave guidance to the reporters, and the phrase 'follow the money' is linked with the story.