Budding reporters test their interview skills

Journalism students from Teesside University put their interview skills to the test when they were given an opportunity to quiz police officers during a mock investigation.

The third-year BA (Hons) Multimedia Journalism students answered a call from Cleveland Police to take part in a training course held at Cleveland Police headquarters.

The police set up a mock scenario surrounding an assault on a pensioner, with the four students, Dominic Shaw, Philip Bollands, Ben Glass and Sam Holdsworth, taking part in a mock press briefing in which they acted as journalists seeking information from the police.

It meant the students, all from Middlesbrough, were able to gain special insight into how the police deal with media enquiries during a police operation.

Their role involved acting as members of the press while a group of Detective Constables were given the make believe scenario to deal with, which also involved working on a media strategy to face the ‘press’ to give statements and hold a press conference.

Ben said: 'It was a great experience to be able to see how the police are trained to deal with the media.'

Dominic added: 'We were briefed about the scenario and then put our questions to the police officers, it provided us with great practice and experience.'

Cleveland Police’s Acting Head of Training, Laura Raw said: 'This was the first time Journalism students have provided input into the ICIDP (Initial Crime Investigator’s Development Programme) course.

'Their role was to act as the media at a press conference where detectives were issuing initial information on a major inquiry scenario.

Give the officers a taste of facing the press under a degree of pressure 'The course co-ordinators thought that using ‘pseudo media’ would add realism to the exercise and also give the officers a taste of facing the press under a degree of pressure, albeit in a controlled environment.

'The students all quickly rose to the challenge and threw themselves into their roles, with some incisive and persistent questioning. Initial feedback from the officers suggests that having the students on board was extremely worthwhile, certainly they and the students all seemed to benefit and gain from the experience.'

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