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