An Ambitious Reporter Learn English through story level 2

have you ever had that one moment when

you know that if you do something it

will change the rest of your life

i don’t mean saying yes when somebody

asks you to marry them

but maybe i do mean that as well

have you ever had one of those moments

when you know that what you are going to

do next will change the rest of your

life

have you ever been in that position

if you have

then you will understand what happened

to me

i had a friend

well not really a friend just a girl i

used to talk to in the students union

bar

and she was on holiday once in southern

spain

she was about

18 at the time

working in spain during her gap year

after school and before coming up to

university

she was on a bus in granada waiting for

it to leave

and this guy tapped on her window

she said that he was the most beautiful

man she’d ever seen

a traveller

one of a band of musicians

she could see their van

and he gestured for her to get out of

the bus

and go with him

and she wanted to

but she didn’t

and she said that she’d never forget

that moment

and i know that she’s right

she won’t

you see

you don’t get that many moments in a

life

i know

because my life has changed

completely

and this

is how it happened

the day had started well

it was tuesday morning and i was in the

student news office for an early meeting

i’m sure you’ve heard of student news

it’s been the winner of the university

newspaper of the year award for 10 years

in a row

three former editors have top jobs on

major newspapers

it’s the newspaper every media study

student wants to write for

that’s why many of them choose this

university and i was the award-winning

news editor

voted the student most likely to succeed

after uncovering a big property fraud in

the city last year

i was the star reporter

so

there i was with the rest of the team in

a tiny cupboard we called the office

two big filing cabinets a table with a

couple of computers

and some chairs that looked as if they’d

lost their cushions halfway through the

last century

walls covered with grey paint with bits

missing where people had stuck things up

a view through the window of concrete

and dustbins

you know the kind of place

but none of that mattered to us

we weren’t there to admire the view

but to show how clever we were

i’d already had a few articles in the

independent and the sunday times

and everyone knew that i’d been promised

a job as soon as i finished my degree

later that year

this had made the editor really furious

angela

that was our editor’s name

a real reporter a bit like those tough

american reporters i used to watch in

old movies

i’d never liked her much

but i did respect her

she was a good editor

she had a nose for a story as we say

she could always smell a good story

she had a feeling for things that

excited people

you could see that she would become a

good journalist

and that is what she wanted after

university

she was desperate to get a job in one of

the tabloids

let me explain

there are two kinds of newspapers

first

there are the serious newspapers

the broad sheets

the big newspapers that you can’t open

in a bus without hitting the person

sitting next to you

you’re talking about the guardian

the independent the telegraph the times

and their sunday editions some people

call them the heavies

and not just the poor delivery boys and

girls who can only bike around with half

a dozen copies because they weigh so

much

no

it’s because they are said to be

intellectually heavyweight

and compared to the other kind of

newspaper they are

second

there are the tabloids these are small

papers which have huge headlines

sometimes only one word that almost

fills the page

this is great because they’re not

intended for people who actually want to

read

they contain stories about soap stars

and other famous people

and about the events in soap operas and

the weekly issue

this

is what they think is news

they take a story and decide what the

issue is and then demand that the

government do something about it

immediately

it’s quite possible that they demanded

the opposite a few months ago

but they assume that their readers don’t

remember such things

and they’re usually right

when it rains the tabloids scream stop

this flooding

and when it doesn’t rain they scream

where’s the water they love crime

because then they can have full page

headlines that shout wanted

or show some face and scream is this the

face of the most evil man in britain

i’ve always hated the tabloids and the

way they react to the news

they’re like

two-year-olds who scream when they’re

hungry or lose a toy

i’ve never thought that their attitude

to world affairs was grown up

today

i feel differently

i think that what they do in order to

increase their readership is actually

evil

then i would say that wouldn’t i

after what happened

angela had always wanted to work for a

tabloid newspaper but because student

news won awards funded by a broadsheet

the tabloids weren’t interested in her

not then anyway

so

it was another tuesday morning another

ordinary editorial meeting

or so i thought

i was only half listening to angela who

was dominating the meeting as usual

is everyone here she asked

i don’t know about any of you but i want

to get back home soon

i’ve got a lot of work to do

she just wants to get home to watch the

soaps on television

my friend laura the features editor

whispered to me

i laughed and angela frowned at me i

hope you’ve come here with a few good

ideas for next week’s top story mike

i hadn’t really thought much about next

week’s issue

i’d been working on an essay until late

the previous night

i still had to get my degree

however

i wasn’t going to let angela know that

yes

i smiled at angela i’ve got a great idea

i said

and i had

it had just come to me right then

good

said angela

can you share it with us

sure i said

you know how the university sold off

some land near the river for building

last year

the building a new housing estate

well

think about all the floods we’ve been

having

there’s a real danger with land that

close to a river

actually

i wouldn’t be surprised if the area used

to be a flood plain

you know

where fields beside rivers were kept

empty because they flooded every year

and that stopped the river flooding the

town

angela nodded

i knew she was interested

a few families have moved into the new

estate

i continued

and i think the river may have flooded

already

and i’d bet no one told them that their

new houses were likely to flood

i bet no one told them that the houses

were on an old flood plain

i like it

said angela immediately mike

you go and interview the families and

take sue with you to do the photos

john

you look on the internet and see if you

can find some old maps that show the

area

if you can’t find what you need online

then go to the library in town

they have a local history section

sue

i want you to find some good pictures of

other estates built on floodplains that

have flooded recently

we’ll make it a two-page news special

that’s what angela is like

i told you she was a good editor

she knows what makes a good story and

she knows how to make sure that every

detail of the story is properly shown

and so that was how it started

i went down to the new estate with sue

our photographer

there were only about six finished

houses and five families had moved in

the river had come up as far as the

front doors

and there was thick mud everywhere

it was awful

and it smelled goodness knows what was

in the river

but it certainly wasn’t clean water

as we arrived a young mother was trying

to lift a buggy with a baby inside over

the mud

she’d been to the supermarket and was

carrying several bags of shopping

here i said let me help you

wait said sue

that’s a perfect shot

she took a picture

but if she did so the mother who wasn’t

much older than me

heard the sound

no

she shouted

and put her hands over her face

she dropped the buggy

and if i hadn’t jumped forward

i think the baby would have fallen

sideways into the thick mud

i lifted the buggy out of the mud

and put it inside the doorway of her

house

it’s okay

i said gently

we didn’t mean to upset you

we’re from the university

we’re doing a story about the flood for

the student newspaper

your students

asked the mother

she seemed relieved

she looked around at the sea of black

mud

and you just want to write about this

yes

i said

but wheels were turning in my reporter’s

head

what other story is there

i was wondering

if you don’t want to be photographed

it’s not a problem

i said

sue gave me a dirty look

it was just that the baby in his buggy

made a great picture

it really shows people what you have to

put up with here

it’s been terrible

the mother murmured

ever since it started to rain last month

i thought the water was going to come

right inside the house but it didn’t

she smiled

she looked much younger when she smiled

do come in

she said

my name’s carol

and this

she stroked her baby’s cheek

this is robbie

why don’t i talk to carol while you see

if some of the other families will be

willing to let you photograph them

i suggested to sue

okay

agreed sue

though i knew that she still wanted to

take more shots of carol trying to lift

her baby over the mud

some of the other families may have

small children too

i added

sue went off

and i helped carol take her shopping

indoors

the house was almost empty

you could see that carol didn’t have

much money

but everything was spotlessly clean

she clearly spent all her money on her

baby

and apart from baby food

one of the things in her bag was a new

toy for robbie

it was a round container with different

shaped holes

you know

round square

triangular

and a bag full of round square and

triangular blocks

robbie

loved it you could see that

he took each block and tried to get it

through each hole in turn

it was a bit expensive carol confessed

but i thought he’d enjoy it

and it would help him learn things

it was clear just how much her baby

meant to her

i liked carol let’s get that straight

and i could see that she was a

marvellous mother

so i could have just asked her a few

questions about the flooding and walked

away

but i didn’t

there had been something about the way

she’d reacted to sue that bothered me

she didn’t want any pictures

and she didn’t like journalists

something had happened to her in the

past i was sure of it

i decided to find out who she was

it wasn’t difficult

the building company had a record of all

the people who had rented the houses

and angela had already emailed it to me

number four

the house we had visited had been rented

by carol peterson

the name carol peterson didn’t mean

anything to me

and i couldn’t find anything on the

internet

but then

i typed carol peters and hit the search

button too soon

it was just a mistake

but it told me who carol really was

she was carol peters

there was loads of stuff about her

at the time of the trial

i was only 10 years old

but i do remember people talking about

it

i suppose that everyone was talking

about it

carol was 11 years old then

it was revealed during the trial that

she’d had a terrible childhood herself

her parents drank and were violent

she’d been a lonely child

never made any friends

but she loved looking after children

and even though she was so young

lots of mothers let her look after their

babies

i think that’s why they were so angry

they all felt that it could have been

their baby who died

no one ever found out exactly what had

happened

carol said that she’d put the baby on a

slide and he’d fallen off and smashed

his head

but the blood was on the other side of

the park

near a wall

so the police thought that she’d hit the

baby to stop it crying

she said that she’d taken the baby over

there after the accident

she’d wanted to hide away

the jury didn’t believe her

they decided that she’d murdered the

baby

she was sent to a prison for young

people

and stayed there until she was sixteen

after that

no one knew what had happened to her

i was reading one final report

when angela came into the office

the article had been written by a

tabloid reporter who had waited for her

to leave the prison but missed her and

then wrote that carol was a monster who

should stay in prison for the rest of

her life

angela read the article over my shoulder

before i notice she was there

it took her about two seconds to make

the connection between carol peters

and carol peterson

how long have you known about this

she asked me i’ve only just discovered

it

i told her

and were you going to tell me she

inquired

of course

i lied

i knew what was going to happen next

angela would ring up one of her new

contacts at one of the tabloid

newspapers

and that is exactly what she did

the tabloid press had a great time

we find child killers secret home they

screamed

is this child safe

they asked about robbie

the law in britain protects children

so they weren’t allowed to mention his

name or take pictures of him they took

pictures of a teddy bear in the garden

instead

it wasn’t even robbie’s teddy bear

one of the tabloid reporters had put it

there

near the front door

it made a great picture

a sad lonely bear in the mud

that’s how they do it

soon local people arrived and demanded

that this evil child killer be taken

away

they didn’t want her near their children

the next day the police and social

services arrived

and took robbie away

for his safety they said

carol hadn’t told anyone that she’d got

a son

she’d managed to hide away from the

police and social services

she got a new identity and it started a

new life on her own

and until i arrived

she’d been doing very well

she left a few days later

and so i never saw her again

i resigned from the student news

i knew i was never going to be a

reporter

i never wanted to write for a newspaper

again

i decided to become a teacher

and go abroad

i wanted to go away

as far away from england as possible

it all happened two years ago

and today

although i live 8 000 kilometers from

england

i’m still back there

i can remember carol’s face as she

watched robbie finally find a circle and

drop it through the circle-shaped

hole i remember that moment of happiness

between them

and i can hear her screaming as they

took robbie away

you see

the thing is

when angela rang the tabloids they

already knew about carol

because i had already emailed them

i had to get the story in first didn’t i

i was the star reporter

you