Reporting and Editing Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The term pack journalism was coined by Timothy Crouse, option (A), in his book The Boys on the Bus (1973), which describes how reporters following a campaign share the same sources and stories and so write alike.

Philip Meyer is known for precision journalism, and Jay Rosen for public journalism. These are other concepts, so they are not the source of the term pack journalism. Crouse described the reporters who travelled in the same bus on the 1972 presidential campaign and copied one another, which gave the name to the habit of a pack following one story.

Answer: A

The key gives option (A), the newspaper's stand on an issue, as the meaning of the term police story. I could not confirm this reading from a published glossary of journalism terms, so it follows the official key.

The other meanings, opposing a police action, highlighting the day's events and correcting a blunder, are not accepted by the key. A reviewer may wish to check this item. Terms of newsroom slang differ from one office to another, so a reviewer should check the glossary used by the setters before relying on this meaning.

Answer: C

In newspaper parlance a sacred cow means a favourable treatment given to a story or a person who is not to be criticised, option (C), a subject that is protected from criticism.

It is not the highlighting of an inane issue, the use of many adjectives or the management's favour to an employee, which are other matters. The idea is that such a subject is held sacred by the paper's owners or by an influential group, so the reporter treats it gently and does not use the criticism that he would use on others.

Answer: A

A widow in newspaper production is an isolated word, option (A): a very short last line of a paragraph standing alone at the top of a column.

It is not a useless headline, a bad break or a tie-break. A bad break is a different layout fault, and the widow is the single short line left at the end. Editors try to avoid a widow, because it leaves a gap of white space and makes the column look untidy, and they often rewrite or trim a line to bring the short last word back into the paragraph.

Answer: A

A bright is a short feature, option (A), a short, light and entertaining item, often at the foot of a page, used for human interest.

It is not a balanced editorial, an attractive news item as such, or a complex interview. The term refers to a brief and lively piece. Editors ask reporters for a bright when the page needs relief from serious news, and it is usually written in a light vein with a short and sharp ending.

Answer: A

Galtung and Ruge identified threshold, option (A), as one of the elements of newsworthiness. An event must pass a minimum size or intensity to be noticed as news, and a larger event passes it more easily.

Conduct, conviction and ideology are not among their news factors, which also include frequency, unambiguity, meaningfulness and consonance. The other factors on the list of Galtung and Ruge include frequency, unambiguity, meaningfulness, consonance, unexpectedness, continuity, composition and reference to elite nations and elite persons.

Answer: D

In reporting, verification is understood as conformity with specified criteria, option (D): the facts are checked against set standards of accuracy and proof.

Techniques, ideals and sources are all part of reporting, but verification is a matter of testing the information against criteria, which is why the key chooses criteria. The reporter checks his facts by comparing them with the records, with the standards of proof used in the profession, and with the sources, so that what is printed meets the tests laid down for accuracy.

Answer: D

The human interest score of the Flesch formula of readability indicates personal words and sentences, option (D). The more personal words and sentences a text has, the higher its human interest score.

Syllable count and sentence length are used in the reading ease score, and fractions are not a measure in the formula. Rudolf Flesch devised two scores, one for reading ease and one for human interest, and the human interest score counts the personal words, like names and pronouns, and personal sentences, like quotations and questions.

Answer: B

The key gives option (B): both statements are true, but the Reason is not the correct explanation of the Assertion. Community journalism is held to have lost ground as local news is carried by TV and radio, and these media can reach every area, but the new technology does not by itself explain the exit.

The options calling a statement false are not accepted by the key. I followed the official answer for this opinion-based item.

Answer: B

The Fog Index was developed by Robert Gunning.

Gunning introduced it in 1952. It estimates how hard a passage is to read from the average sentence length and the share of long words, giving a score close to the school grade needed to follow it.

Rudolph Flesch created a different test, the Reading Ease formula. James Reston and Walter Cronkite were journalists and have no readability formula.

The Fog Index multiplies the sum of the average sentence length and the percentage of words with three or more syllables by 0.4, so shorter sentences and simpler words lower the score.