Is Marisela Thornbury-Okafor a real reporter

No. She is invented for this page, and so are The Pendlewick Chronicle and Calderdale Evening Post. The figures show a shape and no story described here exists.

What did the one-word change do

The first draft of this document said “Wrote 240 published articles a year” and scored 92, because the evidence rule looks for a unit immediately after a number and found “published” instead of “articles”. Removing one word scored 97.

Is that a fault in the checker

It is a limit, and it is worth knowing. The rule is deliberately literal so it cannot be talked into counting something that is not there. The effect is that a number and its unit should sit next to each other, which is also better writing.

What did the checker score it

97 out of 100, with one improvement remaining worth 8 points, which is readable volume at 170 words against a band opening at 250.

Should clippings go on the page

Yes, as a plain address in the contact row so it survives extraction. An editor will open it, and a parser will store it as text rather than losing it inside a graphic.

Which design is this rendered in

Ledger, one of the 37 layouts and not one of the 21 marked ATS-safe. Newsroom applications usually go to an editor directly; a large publisher's portal is the case for an ATS-safe layout.

Example · Media

A reporter résumé example, and one word that cost five points

One complete reporter résumé, written out in full. The person is invented. The reading, the score and the five-point lesson are the product's own.

ConxfolioPublished 2026-09-13

— bylines are the portfolio. the page is the record.

The reporter example résumé drawn as a complete page in the Ledger design: name, summary, the roles with their bullet lines, education and a skills row — The example below, drawn by the builder's own renderer in the Ledger design. The picture was taken by pressing this page's own Use this example door and photographing what the editor rendered.

Reporters are hired on clippings and shortlisted on a page, and the page is usually the weakest document in the application. This example is written out in full so you can read a strong one, then put through the tools here so you can see what a parser makes of it. The candidate is invented. Marisela Thornbury-Okafor does not exist, neither title exists, and every figure was chosen to demonstrate a shape.

The example, in full

An invented person. Not a real document, and not yours.

Marisela Thornbury-Okafor
Reporter
Manchester, United Kingdom · [email protected] · +44 161 496 0533

Summary
Reporter with seven years on local government and health coverage. Works on records requests, sources and stories that take four months to stand up.

Experience

Senior Reporter · The Pendlewick Chronicle, Manchester · 2021 to present

Wrote 240 articles a year on local government and health.
Led a 4-month investigation into care home inspections, filing 30 records requests.
Broke 9 stories that were followed by 3 national outlets.
Trained 5 trainee reporters on records requests and contempt rules.

Reporter · Calderdale Evening Post, Halifax · 2018 to 2021

Covered 3 council patches and filed 6 stories a week.
Built a contact list of 200 sources across health and housing.
Produced 40 long reads and 12 audio pieces in 3 years.

Education
MA Journalism · Rochdale Media School, Manchester · 2016 to 2017

Skills
news reporting, investigations, freedom of information requests, interviewing, media law, court reporting, data journalism, audio production, shorthand, source management

Languages
English · native · Yoruba · native

Certifications
NCTJ Diploma in Journalism · 2017

Output, investigation, pick-up

Two hundred and forty articles a year. A four-month investigation with thirty records requests filed. Nine stories broken and followed by three national outlets. Those three describe a reporter completely: the volume they can sustain, the patience they have for a long story, and whether anybody noticed.

Pick-up is the hardest of the three to write honestly, and a count of stories followed elsewhere is the version that survives a check. It is a fact about other publications rather than a claim about impact.

One word, five points

The first draft of this document opened with "Wrote 240 published articles a year" and the checker scored it 92, with the measurable-evidence rule finding a single qualifying line out of seven and awarding 12 of its 25 points. The page you are reading says "Wrote 240 articles a year" and scores 97.

The reason is exact. The evidence rule looks for a number followed immediately by a unit it recognises, and "articles" is on that list while "published" is not. A word between the number and the unit hides the evidence from the rule. That is a limit in a deliberately literal measurement rather than a hidden preference, and the practical consequence is worth taking: put the number next to the thing it counts, which reads better anyway. The ATS checker prints which lines it counted, so you can find this on your own document in about a minute.

What the reading found

The door on this page hands the document to the résumé builder as plain text, through the same import an uploaded file goes through, and the review shows each field beside the line it came from. Here the completeness pass found four readable sections, 89 words of experience evidence and ten distinct skills, with the clippings address kept in the contact row and the diploma kept as a certification.

The Conxfolio import review after the door opened, showing Marisela Thornbury-Okafor's example read into fields beside the rendered page, with the line saying it is an example — The real import review, opened by this page's own door. It names Marisela Thornbury-Okafor as invented before anything is saved, and it shows every field beside the line it came from.

No language model is used at any point. Every string a reader emits is checked in code to be a span of your document, which is the behaviour you want from anything handling a byline.

What the checker scored it

The same import review on a 390 pixel phone screen, with the example notice above the accept button — The same door on a phone. Nothing is withheld on the small screen: the notice, the reading and the accept button are all there.

Ninety-seven out of 100, with one improvement remaining worth 8 points. The arithmetic is 100 × 30% + 100 × 30% + 92 × 40% = 97, explained in the article on the score. Seven evidence lines, six read as action-led, three carrying measurable evidence, and 170 readable words against a band opening at 250.

Newsroom pages are short because the clippings do the work. That is a reasonable trade and it costs eight points here, which the checker names rather than hides.

What this example leaves off

No source names, no unpublished material and no list of every outlet that has ever run a freelance piece. Sources are the one thing a reporter never puts in writing, and an editor reads their absence as professional.

Social media follower counts are left off as well. A following is an audience the platform lends you, it moves for reasons that have nothing to do with reporting, and an editor hiring for a patch is buying the records requests rather than the reach.

What to change for your own

Change the patch. Politics, sport, business, culture and court reporting all use this shape with different sources and different risks. Then put in your own output, records requests, investigations and pick-up.

Keep shorthand and media law in the skills row if you have them, because they are still filter terms. Keep the clippings address readable. The guide on quantifying achievements covers the rest, the design gallery holds 37 layouts, and the copywriter example, the content strategist example and the paralegal example sit beside this one.

Write yours beside it

Opens the builder with Marisela's example loaded, saved as its own entry in the Ledger design. Replace every line with your own. Free, no account.

Use this example Check a résumé instead

Questions

Is Marisela Thornbury-Okafor a real reporter: No. She is invented for this page, and so are The Pendlewick Chronicle and Calderdale Evening Post. The figures show a shape and no story described here exists.
What did the one-word change do: The first draft of this document said “Wrote 240 published articles a year” and scored 92, because the evidence rule looks for a unit immediately after a number and found “published” instead of “articles”. Removing one word scored 97.
Is that a fault in the checker: It is a limit, and it is worth knowing. The rule is deliberately literal so it cannot be talked into counting something that is not there. The effect is that a number and its unit should sit next to each other, which is also better writing.
What did the checker score it: 97 out of 100, with one improvement remaining worth 8 points, which is readable volume at 170 words against a band opening at 250.
Should clippings go on the page: Yes, as a plain address in the contact row so it survives extraction. An editor will open it, and a parser will store it as text rather than losing it inside a graphic.
Which design is this rendered in: Ledger, one of the 37 layouts and not one of the 21 marked ATS-safe. Newsroom applications usually go to an editor directly; a large publisher's portal is the case for an ATS-safe layout.

Conxfolio is a free set of four career tools: a résumé builder with 37 rendered layouts, an ATS résumé checker that prints its own arithmetic, a cover letter builder that traces every proof paragraph back to the line it came from, and a portfolio builder with 20 authored designs. There is no account to create, nothing is held back for a paid plan, and no language model is used anywhere in the product, so the readers, the score and the letter are deterministic code you can check.