OK
The applicant is expect to write a story based on the following information.
Part of the test includes what the applicant includes and omits from story, and he/she should be ready to explain thought process.
Use AP style.
Be ready to suggest three or four followup stories.
Here are the facts, and assume then all to be true.
There was a fire at 301 North Chestnut Street.
Two children, Nicole Chavis, who was 4, and James Locklear, who was 8, are dead.
The fire destroyed the two-story brick home.
The fire was reported at 12:09 a.m. this morning (a Tuesday) by a neighbor, Ricky Britt. The day is Tuesday. This article is for Tuesday’s newspaper.
Fire departments from Allenton, White House and Lumberton responded. Allenton is 8 miles from the scene, White House is 12 miles from the scene at Lumberton is 1 mile from the scene. Allenton arrived first at 12:31 a.m., White House next at 12:42 a.m. and Lumberton next at 12:44 a.m.
Britt entered the house and was able to get one child out of the house, 11-year-old Daniel Chavis.
The children were being watched by a babysitter, 16-year-old Brittany Bell.
Their mother, Angela Chavis returned home at about 12:50 a.m., and saw her house on fire. She saw Daniel Chavis, but not her other children, and started screaming, “Where are Nicole and James? Where are my other children?”
You interview Ricky Britt, and he says this: “I was getting ready to go to bed but let my dog out to use the bathroom and I heard some noise. I looked out and saw some flames coming out of the roof, and at the same time I heard a young woman screaming to help her. I ran into the house and I was able to help one child, I think his name is Daniel, out of the house. But I tried to get upstairs to the other two children, and I couldn’t get to them. The heat and smoke were too much.”
The reporter can see Brittany Bell and an unidentified male with her. He tries to speak with her but she is hysterical and cannot be interviewed. It’s unclear who the boy with her is.
Angela Chavis collapses and is put in an ambulance and driven away. A man who was with her leaves with her. The reporter is told by Daniel that his mom and the man were on a date and went to a late movie. Daniel says the boy with Brittany is her boyfriend and they were in a downstairs bedroom when the fire began. Daniel was asleep on a couch.
The chief of the Lumberton fire department, Willie Floyd, is obviously upset. He says his department’s tanker truck was blocked by an illegally parked car. It was delayed about 15 minutes. The driver of the car, according to Floyd, was John Harris, a local physician. Floyd said Harris had been at a bar and was obviously intoxicated.
Floyd said he will talk to the DA about criminal charges against Harris. Usually the tanker truck can exit the station by heading in two directions, forward or backward, but the forward option was not available because of temporary construction of a booth that was to be used at the station’s annual fundraiser on the following Saturday.
Britt also tells the reporter that Angela’s husband is in jail for failing to be pay child support. His name is Arnold Chavis. According to Britt, Arnold Chavis once served time in prison for insurance fraud, connected with him intentionally burning a mobile home he owned and collecting insurance.
An autopsy will be performed on the dead children.
Britt says all the children are Angela’s but did not know why Locklear has a different last name.