Chapter 15 Multiple Choice Self-Quiz

. The purpose of advance stories for meetings and speeches is to

predict what will be decided or discussed at a speech or meeting.

increase ticket sales for speakers who come to the community.

alert readers and viewers to events they may want to attend.

promote the activities of government agencies and community groups.

. Which of the following usually is NOT included in an advance story for a speech or meeting?

What will happen.

Whether the event is worth attending.

When and where it will happen.

Who will be involved.

. Which of the follow is NOT one of the skills required for covering speeches and meetings?

The ability to make an event seem more interesting that it was.

Advance preparation.

Sound news judgment.

An ear for interesting quotations.

. A reporter assigned to cover a meeting of a public agency usually will prepare by

reading the agenda for the meeting.

looking up the phone numbers of the members.

preparing a container of strong coffee.

inviting friends and relatives to attend.

. Prominent speakers will sometimes make available to reporters before a speech

devices for recording the speech.

instructions on how the reporters should write their stories.

bibliographies of works they will be quoting in the speech.

copies of the text of the speech.

. Reporters planning to cover a speech or meeting usually try to arrive

early so they can interview the people involved and skip the speech or meeting itself.

just in time for the start of the speech or meeting so as to avoid wasting time.

late so they can interview people leaving the speech or meeting after it is over.

early so they can find seats the will allow them to see and hear everything.

. Often it is difficult to identify the central point for a story about a meeting because

many meetings deal with several unrelated topics.

everyone knows readers and viewers do not care about politics.

the topics discussed at most meetings are too technical and specialized for the general public to understand.

whatever is done at a meeting will have little effect on the lives of most people.

. The major difficulty to determining the central point for a speech or meeting story is

the difficulty for reporters to understand what public agencies are doing or what speakers are saying.

the lack of public interest in what agencies do or what prominent people say.

meetings and speeches often deal with multiple important topics.

the conflicting advice they receive from editors and news directors.

. Which of the following is NOT one of the solutions to the problem of organizing a speech or meeting story?

Select the one or two most important topics and summarize them in the lead and summarize the rest in the second and third paragraphs.

Select the one most important topic and omit any discussion of other topics.

Select the most important topic and summarize it in the lead and then list other important topics that were discussed.

Select the most important topic and summarize it in the lead and then list minor topics near the end of the story.

. A common error beginning reporters make when they cover speeches or meetings is to

write leads that are so broad they contain no news.

write leads that are filled with concrete, specific facts.

include lots of quotations in their stories.

include colorful details about speakers and participants in their stories.

. Follow stories about speeches usually emphasize one of three things:

the main point of the speech, the length of the speech or the reaction to the speech.

the location of the speech, the identity of the speaker or the reaction to the speech.

the main point of the speech, the identity of the speaker or the time the speech started.

the main point of the speech, the identity of the speaker or the reaction to the speech.

. If a speakers uses an anecdote in her or his speech, it might make a good lead if

it is germane to the speaker's central point.

it is sufficiently funny.

it is likely to make readers angry.

nothing else comes to mind for a lead.

. Reporters writing speech or meeting stories should check the attribution to make sure

it always comes at the beginning of a sentence or paragraph.

its location is varied throughout the story.

it always comes at the end of a sentence or paragraph.

it always includes the phrase "according to."

. If a speaker delivers a personal attack on another person during a speech, a reporter covering that speech should

omit the personal attack so as to avoid libeling the person attacked.

include the personal attack but write a story with the response for the next day.

include a response from person who has been attacked in the same story that reports the speech.

include the personal attack and wait for the target of the attack to respond.

. If a speaker makes a questionable assertion of fact during a speech, the reporter should

report what the speaker said but note that its accuracy is in doubt.

check out the facts.

omit the statement entirely.

report what the speaker said without comment or correction.

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