Syllabus for AJRL 200Z Intro to Reporting and New Writing: spring 2011

Syllabus for AJRL 200Z Intro to Reporting and New Writing: spring 2011

(section 5944)

Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:15-11:35 a.m.

SL G20

Sari Botton, Adjunct Professor Journalism

Office: Humanities 333

Office Hours: 11:45 – 12:45, Tuesday and Thursday

sari@saribotton.com or

646-298-5636 (cell) or (office) 518/442-4056, or (home) 845-658-9567

Syllabus and other information posted at http://www.professorbotton.blogspot.com

Objective:

Students who take this course will gain insight into what news is, and how it is gathered and disseminated. You will do so partly by becoming savvy consumers of news. You will be introduced to the techniques of recognizing, gathering and writing news, and learn to craft several types of articles. There will be discussion of the different types of news outlets – including wire services, newspapers, magazines, television news, radio, documentaries, weblogs and online news aggregator sites. The course will also introduce students to the legal and ethical issues of journalism, including objectivity, balance, fairness, plagiarism, confidentiality agreements, and the impact of corporate ownership and political preferences on news organizations. It will also address the shift from print publications to online media, and the emergence of the “citizen journalist.” Attention will also be paid to article structure and the best ways to produce clear, compelling writing.

The class will be conducted as a combination of a writing workshop – with a good amount of writing and reading aloud in class – and a series of news meetings at a newspaper or other news organization.

Materials:

Required:

1) Writing and Reporting the News by Carole Rich. Each week, students will reach chapters from Writing and Reporting the News by Carole Rich, which will be discussed in class the following session. We will also do some of the exercises from the book in and out of class.

2) Twitter account. This is free. Go to http://www.twitter.com and sign up. You will use this mostly as a research tool.

3) Tumblr account. This is also free. Go to http://www.tumblr.com and sign up. This is so that you can a) blog on your own tumblr page, and b) contribute to the “class newspaper” tumblr you will eventually all collaborate on, found at http://classnewspaper.tumblr.com. Students will post earlier drafts to their own individual tumblrs, and then, after polishing them, contribute them to the class newspaper tumblr. Each student will choose a beat to cover for this.

4) Digital camera or cell phone camera, for photos to illustrate stories. If you do not have one, you can borrow one. The Interactive Media Center in the basement of the library can help you.

5) Attention to the your email account! Occasionally I will email or bring in copies of an article from a newspaper, magazine or website that is a good – or really bad – example of a certain type of news story.

Attendance:

You must come to class. There are people who want to take this class but are shut out. If you are fortunate enough to enroll, you must be willing to come to class and do the work. Some rare excuses are acceptable for missing class, such as court appearances, deaths in the family, and severe illness. In these cases, absences can be excused. Please let me know in advance, via email or phone. Unexcused absences will affect your final grade.

Deadlines:

For the most part, assignments will be turned in both as a DOUBLE-SPACED hard copy, and via your blog. Missing deadlines is professionally unacceptable for journalists and for you too. Unless you have a strong excuse, assignments will be marked down one grade for every day they are late.

Assignments and Grading:

There will be no exams.

1/3: A full one-third of your grade will depend on a final multimedia news article. It can be about a department or program at UAlbany, or on another subject of your choice, approved by me, but it has to be a NEWS ARTICLE, not a “report.” You will find, develop, report, write (also photograph, and possibly record, shoot video on) a full-length feature or news story for this final project. The idea is that this story will pull together all that you should learn in class. Length should be about 1,000 to 1,200 words depending on your topic, which we will discuss in class. Your use of photos, audio or video presentations – strongly encouraged - will enhance the story. Start thinking of what you want to work on RIGHT NOW. Getting this done will take time. Do not wait until the final few weeks to pull this together.

1/3: The second third of your grade will depend on a several assignments, including covering a meeting and working on a story in which you must interview someone who is "different" from you, that is, someone who is not a friend or family member. There will be flexibility in deciding what stories during the course of the semester should be counted as a major assignment.

1/3: The final one-third of your grade will be based on your class participation, participation in the “class newspaper” at http://www.classnewspaper.tumblr.com, the upkeep of your own tumblr blog, and performance on smaller exercises and assignments. Not everyone shows what he or she knows or can do by speaking up in class. For that reason and because all journalists need to write copiously you will each set up a personal journal in the form of a tumblr blog. The look and tone is up to you, but you will file regular dispatches on the beat you choose, and reacting to or expanding on class topics. In some cases, you will write an original post on your blog; in others, you will “aggregate” a post from another news site, and provide commentary and context on it. Students with a particular skill (blogging technique, for example, or writing humorously with a strong voice, or interviewing acumen) are invited to deliver a class lecture. You may choose to substitute this presentation as a grade of at least B for any one major assignment. It can also be used for extra credit.

There will be a lot of writing and reporting because doing these things is the only way to learn how to become proficient at them. But not every assignment we work on will count in the calculation of your final grade, especially at the beginning of the term. As students you need room to experiment and make mistakes without penalty.

Home work:

On the syllabus, when it says “HW:” that means what is due for the NEXT class.

Schedule:

Week 1

Thursday, January 20 – Introduction to the course. Also, what is news? What counts as journalism these days? Where do you get your news? Introduction to notions of timeliness and relevance. HW: Read chapter 1.

Week 2

Tuesday, January 25 – Working on a news beat. Journalists at newspapers are put on “beats,” where they cover a specific area. We will talk about what that means, and also go around the class to find out what you are each most interested in covering for the “class newspaper.” HW: Read chapter 2. Also, come up with ideas for your beat.

Thursday, January 27 – We’ll talk some more about your beats. Then, on to deconstructing the news. We’ll look at some short news articles and see what they have in common, in terms of structure. We’ll begin to talk about the vocabulary of journalism: “lede,” “hed,” “graph,” “dek,” “TK,” and so on. HW: Finalize your beat. Set up your tumblr blog, reflecting this beat. Write a post describing your beat, and your interest in your particular subject. Read chapter 3

Week 3

Tuesday, February 1 – Constructing the news: how to write a news story, beginning with the five W’s, and the inverted triangle. Students will attempt to write a lede paragraph in class. Also, we will take a look at news sites and news aggregators on the web. What is “aggregation”? We will also discuss “convergence” of the media. And the importance of “linky” blog posts. HW: Read chapter 4. Find and take a look at one of the following sites, and write a description of it. Is it a news site? An aggregator site? Does it do both? What kind of news does it cover? Sites to look at: Salon, Slate, The Daily Beast, Jezebel, The Huffinton Post, The Drudge Report, The Atlantic, New York Magazine’s Daily Intel, Gawker, Jezebel. Bring what you wrote to class, and be prepared to read it aloud.

Thursday, February 3 – Finding stories and getting the information. We will discuss how the journalist goes about deciding what is a story, and acquiring the information – before and after an editor gives the story the go-ahead. We will talk about taking notes and/or recording interviews, whether in person or on the phone. HW: start gathering information for a story you think is news, within your beat. Interview at least three sources for it. Also, read chapter 5. The story will be due Tuesday, 2/15.

Week 4

Tuesday, February 8 – Style – yours and the paper’s. We’ll discuss writing style, and style manuals. Among the points: avoid clichés and cuteness; eschew obfuscation. HW: Read chapter 6. Begin thinking about the subject of your final news story.

Thursday, February 10 – Making transitions. It’s important that your stories don’t read like lists of quotes strung together. Plus: The blog. At first they seemed like loners addicted to their computers. Now “bloggers” are being taken seriously – and papers like the New York Times are having their staffs maintain weblogs. The rise of weblogs is one area where we’ve seen the emergence of the “citizen journalist.” Digital technology and the citizen journalist. Armed with digital video cameras, cell phones with cameras, and other recording devices, “regular Joes” are showing up on the scenes of crimes and other events and capturing things before the news organizations know about them. They’re providing crucial evidence and making a difference – and often receiving a lot of money in exchange. HW: Read chapter 7. Assignment: Write a short news story, using the interviews you recently did. Post it on your blog. And bring a copy to hand in on Tuesday, 2/15.

Week 5

Tuesday, February 15 – Investigative journalism. The biggest stories are often the hardest to crack, and require investigative approaches. There are frequently controversies surrounding these stories, and hidden information. Finding sources can be difficult and complicated on many levels – and dangerous. Here we’ll talk about terms such as “off the record,” “on background,” and “deep background.” We’ll also talk about the importance of “scooping” the competition, and also some of the controversies around the “gets” that some television news magazines have landed. HW: Read chapter 8. Get a copy of a newspaper that also has an online presence. Find a story that is both in the paper and on the paper’s website. Notice whether there are differences, and/or additional features. Write a few paragraphs about this and be prepared to discuss in class. Bring the article and your commentary on it with you when you come in.

Thursday, February 17 – Research: How and where to do it. From interviewing sources to searching online, to filing Freedom of Information Act forms. Also – can you trust Wikipedia? Which online sources can you trust. And what happens when someone is only willing to give you information off the record? From Watergate to Plamegate: protecting sources. Who is the news organization responsible to first, the public or the source? What happens to the news gathering process when sources can’t feel assured of confidentiality? HW: Read chapter 9. Suggested reading and/or viewing: All the President’s Men.

Week 6

Tuesday, March 1 – Objectivity: Presenting both sides. There will be discussion of how to make sure you’ve gotten the whole story, and that your sources are reliable. Also, researching what has already been covered before you write your story, and finding alternative sources on sites such as ProfNet. And the importance of always letting the facts get in the way of a good story. HW: Read chapter 10.

Thursday, March 3 – Attribution and allegations. It’s important to clearly indicate who said what – and when events are alleged to have occurred, even in cases where there have been many eyewitnesses. HW: Read chapter 11. Write a linky aggregated news post on your blog about an issue or scandal within your beat.

Week 7

Tuesday, March 8 – Phoning it in – literally. In this session I’ll talk about cases in which journalists fabricated stories and/or pretended to be reporting from the scene when they had never left home. I’ll bring in stories by fired New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, and former New Republic writer Stephen Glass. HW: Read chapter 12. Think of a person to interview for an upcoming profile assignment, which will be due Tuesday, March 22th. You’ll be asked to say who it is and why during the next class.

Thursday, March 10 – Covering your tracks. Make sure you do your homework on every front, when you write the news, so you’re not the next disgraced journalist. If you’re not great at taking quick, accurate notes, tape your interviews. Make sure you try to contact all the people mentioned in an article for comment. Do internet searches on your subjects before and after you interview them, so you know what has already been written about them, up to the minute you turning your story. Do your research early – and often. HW: Read chapter 13. Make a list of questions for your interviews (you will not just interview your profile subject, but at least two other sources), which we will discuss in class.

Week 8

Tuesday, March 15 – The art of the interview. We’ll talk about how not to interview subjects – with yes and no questions – and how to really get them to speak. I’ll bring in a great profile, and I’ll also talk about some of the television interviewers and how they work – like Barbara Walters, Charlie Rose, Larry King. HW: Read chapter 14

Thursday, March 17 – The profile. We’ll analyze a couple of profiles, discuss being wary of publicists’ one-sided presentations, and getting the other side of the story from other sources. HW: Read chapter 15. Assignment: write a first draft of a profile of someone interesting whom you can interview in person or on the phone. Put it on your tumblr blog, and also bring in a print version to hand to me.

Week 9

Tuesday, March 22 – Tabloid fever. Celebrity news, for better or for worse, has taken center stage. I’ll discuss the curious ethics of tabloid journalism, and the cut-throat environment for the writers and “paparazzi” photographers. (I used to write gossip for the New York Daily News, and also for Women’s Wear Daily.) I’ll talk about celebrity profiles in which the subject cooperated, and those in which the writers had to “write around” the subject, and bring in examples of both. HW: Read chapter 16.

Thursday, March 24 - Do you believe what you read on the check-out line? How much is slanderous? I’ll bring in some conflicting stories from different tabloids, and also some gossip columns. I’ll also talk about online gossip sites, like Perez Hilton, and illegally acquired photos. Plus, we’ll discuss whether an invasion of privacy and having their lives endangered a la Princess Diana is a fair or unfair price for celebrities pay for being famous. HW: Read chapter 17.

Week 10

Tuesday, March 29 – The obituary. For famous people, they are usually written before they are dead. And, the feature article. We’ll take a look at some lifestyle features, and discuss the different types – trend stories, service features, etc. HW: Read chapter 18. Write a short obituary of a famous person who is not dead yet.

Thursday, March 31 – Arts & Leisure – we’ll look at arts coverage, including features, previews and reviews. We’ll look at Mark Twain’s reviews of James Fenimore Cooper’s work, and also consider the restaurateurs and theater directors who have taken aim at reviewers at the New York Times, over the years and recently. HW: Read chapter 19. Assignment: write a review of an arts event, a restaurant, a shop or another kind of event. Put it on your tumblr blog and be prepared to show/discuss it in class.

Week 11

Tuesday, April 5 – The business of news. I’ll bring in a couple of newspapers and point out the ads as the “commercials” that pay for the lion’s share of publishing costs. I’ll talk about advertiser influence on what is and isn’t covered, and publications, like Ms. Magazine, that relay solely on high-priced subscriptions for their financing so as to remain unbiased. I’ll also address the balance of hard and soft news. In an economy in which publishers are beholden to hard-won advertisers, and viewers have shorter attention spans, there’s more soft news – including celebrity coverage – than ever before. HW: Read chapter 20.

Thursday, April 7 – The corporate factor. Here, we’ll examine the influence of corporate ownership on news organizations. Also, we’ll discuss how news organizations, which are allegedly objective, often have long-standing leanings toward political parties. In addition, we’ll talk about pieces that break the objectivity rule, namely editorials and op-ed pieces. HW: Read chapter 21. Also, find the same news story on Fox News and MSNBC, or in The New York Post and The Daily News. Write a short analysis of the differences between the approaches to the same story, and what you think is behind those differences. Post it on your blog.

Week 12

Tuesday, April 12 – The news feature. There’s the immediate, breaking news, then there are longer sought and considered exposes, and news analyses. I’ll bring in examples of each and we’ll discuss how these work. HW: Read chapter 22. Assignment: Cover a meeting, whether of a school group, or a town/city/county board. Write a short news story about this. Post it on your tumblr blog, and also print it to hand in to me.

Thursday, April 14 – We’ll talk about the students’ ideas for their final news features. HW: Read chapter 23. Finalize your idea for your final piece, Due May 3. You must interview three sources, and have a multimedia aspect for a linky version on your blog.

Week 13

Tuesday, April 26 – How newspapers and magazines work. We’ll talk about the relationship between the writer and the editor, who is considered “the gatekeeper.” We’ll cover the different types of jobs at newspapers, what types of entry-level positions you can get out of college, and where they can lead. We’ll also talk about the copy desk. HW: Read chapter 24.

Thursday, April 28 – The digital revolution. Is print journalism dying? Some insist it never will; one of the publishers of the New York Times recently speculated the paper could be completely online in just a few years. We’ll talk about how the internet has changed the news business, and about the 24-hour news cycle. HW: Read chapters 25 & 26. Finish final news feature for next Tuesday. Late submissions NOT AN OPTION.

Week 14

Tuesday, May 3 – Last day of class. Course review, and talk about types of entry-level journalism jobs offered at different types of outlets. Hand in final news feature.