Examiners sacked after Telegraph’s undercover investigation – Press Gazette

Examiners sacked after Telegraph’s undercover investigation

Posted by Press Gazette on 22 February 2012 at 14:42
Tags: Journalism, National Newspapers, Newspapers

Two examiners at one the country’s leading examination boards have been suspended since a Daily Telegraph undercover investigation revealed examining boards were secretly coaching teachers on how to get the best results.

The December story was praised by Education Secretary Michael Gove as being in the “finest traditions of public interest journalism”.

Today the paper reports that Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA (OCR) board, said “examiners who knew the questions pupils would be asked may need to be banned from giving seminars to teachers or writing books in future”.

In December undercover reporters from the Telegraph found evidence of exam boards giving secret advice to teachers on how to achieve better grades for their pupils at a series of seminars, when one examiner was recorded saying he was “cheating” by giving detailed information on which subjects would be covered in next summer’s history GCSE.

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(posted by PL)

Possible local story

Here’s an interesting story with a local angle. The massively succesful ‘self help guru’ Robert Kiyosaki is coming to the area on Saturday. It would make a good story for anyone who can cover it and get a press pass. Someone might even punt it to a local media outlet.

For L2s and MAs it might make a video package if done well.

here’s the link: http://rdks-lon.localspecific.com/

Discover the teachings of Robert Kiyosaki,
as seen on BBC Two’s Money
series on Tuesday November 29th
HayesSaturday, February 25, 2012
4

The Radisson Edwardian Heathrow 140 Bath Road Hayes, UB3 5AW map

regards,

Paul Lashmar

Get used to it: Women cover sports

Writers and analysts all deserve to be evaluated on the merit of their work

By Christina Kahrl
ESPN.com

Naturally, as press boxes and newsrooms have become increasingly diverse, women in the booth and at the keyboard have earned their place.

For some — including me — women like Gayle Gardner, who first appeared on the national stage with ESPN in 1983, have been role models. (It didn’t hurt that I was a huge USFL fan back in the day.)

But even with the prominence that Gardner achieved, first at ESPN and later at NBC, she observed that “for women especially, this profession will never stop being a struggle with constant blows which must be taken.”

In the years since, women have struggled to earn acceptance from the sports-watching audience. As Gardner cautions, presence alone is not the same thing as total acceptance.

An echo of that uncomfortable reality cropped up recently when ESPN removed and apologized for including “dislike female commentators” on a viewer response form.

Certainly, wherever women write about or analyze the games we love, you can find their work being dismissed by some segment of the audience on comment boards across the Web. It’s easy to be a keyboard hero, showing off a personal brand of misogyny, however subtle, especially behind the timorous anonymity of a nom de Net.

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posted by PL

The Press Awards 2012: Shortlisted journalists

17 February 2012

By Press Gazette

The shortlist for this year’s new look Press Awards has been announced, with The Times leading the way with the most nominations.

For the first time there are separate categories for broadsheet and popular papers in the feature writer of the year, interviewer of the year and columnist of the Year sections. The shortlist for the newspaper of the year category has yet to be announced.

Three Guardian reporters have been nominated for the news reporter of the year catergory: Nick Davies, Paul Lewis and Rupert Neate. They will be up against the Daily Mirror’s David Collins, Sharon Churcher from the Mail on Sunday and The Times’ Andrew Norfolk.

The awards – which recognise work published in 2011 – will be presented on 20 March 2012 at the Lancaster Hotel in London.

Young Journalist of the Year

George Arbuthnott, The Mail on Sunday
Simon Boyle, Daily Mirror
Laurie Penny, The Independent
Laura Pitel, The Times
Ruth Sherlock, The Daily Telegraph

to read more

posted by PL