Practice Clear, Accurate, Informative, Entertaining Writing | MSTD 104, Lab Reports of Communication

Download Practice Clear, Accurate, Informative, Entertaining Writing | MSTD 104 and more Lab Reports Communication in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Spring 2009 Syllabus... MSTD 104 Basic News Writing instructor: Bob Stepno class section, time, days, room: email: rstepno@radford.edu 104-02, 12:30 p.m., Tues-Thurs, Porterfield 173 104-01, 2 p.m.Tues-Thurs, Porterfield 173 phone: 540-831-6220 (yes, the section numbers are confusing) office: 704 Fairfax, K-202 office hours: M-T-W 4:15-5:15 p.m. or e-mail for a morning appointment For up-to-date information, check http://radford.edu/rstepno each week Overview News writing isn’t just for journalism majors anymore. In this course, you will practice clear, accurate, informative, entertaining writing. You will weigh facts, choose words carefully, pay attention to detail, keep your reader in mind, identify your sources, write concisely and meet deadlines. Those are all good habits for any kind of writing. Today, “Freedom of the Press” doesn’t require a press -- or a broadcast tower. Anyone can publish a Web page, keep a blog or send out audio or video reports as podcasts. Readers can read the news online without spending a dime, which has sent publishers scrambling for new ways to make money. The new technologies have inspired “citizen journalists” to report on public affairs out of the same sense of duty, ego or adventure that has inspired professionals. In either case, the skills of news gathering and news writing are the same – you have to know what news is, where to get the facts and how to build a story that will interest and inform your readers. During this course, you may encounter problems similar to those working journalists face: time and space limitations, information gaps, legal and ethical issues, a sometimes-grouchy editor (named Bob), and less salary than you might like. In the end, I hope you'll discover that news writing is challenging, important… and that it can be a lot of fun. Formal course description: Basic News Writing (3) Instruction and practice in basics writing for print and electronic media. Includes introduction to writing fundamentals, writing for all types of media, and use of expository, narrative, descriptive and persuasive approaches. Texts & equipment: Bring these to every class • Tim Harrower, Inside Reporting, McGraw-Hill (Online workbook at: http://www.mhhe.com/harrower1) • The Associated Press Stylebook (new or recent edition) • Notebook, pencils, pens, earphones for use with lab computers Recommended: A good dictionary of American English. (Webster’s New World Dictionary is the Associated Press’s favorite.) 2 Required News Reading & Viewing: You couldn’t learn to cook a good meal if you weren’t already a regular eater. To learn to write news, you need to develop a serious news-reading habit. Try The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, or The Washington Post in print now and then, as well as getting familiar with their Web sites. For local news, check RU Today, Whim and The Tartan, Radford News Journal, New River Voice, local TV station Web sites and The Roanoke Times. A headline aggregator like Topix, Netvibes, my.yahoo or igoogle can streamline the process. Multimedia Tip: Set a clock radio to 89.1 WVTF for the morning news on National Public Radio! Want more news? See news.google.com or my growing list of Web bookmarks at http://del.icio.us/bstepno/news+Virginia (or news+Radford, news+NRV, news+RU etc.) Some things you’ll be practicing and learning in this course: 1. Basic news writing styles, standards and techniques, from the AP’s technical style to ways to handle quotes and structure a story. 2. The importance of accuracy – accurate facts, but also correct grammar and spelling. 3. The concept of news itself -- what is newsworthy, and why. 4. Techniques to find and focus story ideas. 5. Reporting skills: listening, observing, interviewing and note taking. 6. Research skills for “backgrounding” the news, establishing context and checking facts. 7. The vocabulary of journalism, from "lede” to "30." 8. The foundations of journalism ethics and libel law. 9. Differences in story-telling techniques for print, broadcast and online news. Schedule changes & e-mail Like the news itself, expect the class to change as we go along. The assignment calendar may be altered to take advantage of special campus events, speakers, breaking news and other opportunities. Changes in the schedule will be announced in class, by e-mail, and on the Web. Check your Radford.edu e-mail and my website often. If you use another e-mail account, forward your Radford mail to it. If you have questions of any kind, stop in during office hours or send me a note at rstepno@radford.edu. I have other e-mail accounts, but that is the one I use for all course- related mail. I check it several times a day, but rarely after 9 p.m. or before 9 a.m. I may not be able to respond to all mail individually. If you have an especially good question, I may write back to the entire class or discuss it at our next class meeting. E-mail as news writing Your first “news” writing lesson: When you send e-mail, think of the “Subject” line as part of your story. Make it an interesting, informative headline, not a generic label. When you write to me, please put your name, course number (104-1 or 104-2), and topic in the “Subject” line. Example: "Jane Brown, 104-2, darkside story worth Pulitzer." 5 Due on Tuesdays: News Reading Assignments News-reading or “clipping” reports will be required throughout the semester and will count for 10 percent of your grade. Your goal is to read enough news to recognize good examples, as well as to gain a general knowledge of current events. Most of these reports will be about a half-page long; none should be more than a page. They will not receive individual grades. Since part of the purpose is to have you come to class prepared for a discussion, assignments turned in late receive only half credit. Unclear, ungrammatical or inaccurate reports will get only half credit. You may turn in additional reports to receive full credit. After an opening assignment from the textbook’s “Morgue” pages, you can do any SEVEN of these reading assignments, spread across the 14-week semester. However, you may turn in only one per class, and you should do it for the assigned week. Give the name of the publication, the date, headline, URL address of its Web version, and a brief explanation of how it meets the assignment. This may include copied-and-pasted sentences from the story, but the report should still fit on a single sheet of paper. If some situation keeps you from reading “live” news during the week, you may use stories from “the Morgue”; report their page numbers instead of a URL. From the third Tuesday on, submit any seven: • Week 2 – Required: What makes a story interesting? See assignment sheet. • Week 3 – Identify a variety of “Newsworthiness” values represented in front-page stories of the past few days. (Harrower ch.2) • Week 4 – Strong verbs, active voice and concrete nouns: Find examples as good or better than those in the textbook and explain how they were. (Harrower ch.3) • Week 5 – Associated Press Stylebook examples and exceptions noticed in recent stories. (Harrower ch.3, AP Stylebook) • Week 6 – Leads: Find examples of “hard news” and feature stories and discuss the difference in their opening paragraphs. (Harrower ch.3) • Week 7 – News sources: Discuss the reporters’ information sources in two stories, or sources you would use to “background” a follow-up story. (Harrower ch.4) • Week 8 – Interviewing, speeches, meetings and quotes: Find one or two stories with examples of ways to handle “attribution” of quotes. (Harrower ch.4,5) • Week 9 – Story structure: Identify two differently organized stories, such as one in “inverted pyramid” style and one other structure. (Harrower ch.3 & 6) • Week 10 – Compare a “feature obituary” (p.93) with a profile (p.120) of a living person in this month’s newspapers. • Week 11 – Convergence: Using two television news Web site stories, point out differences and similarities in “print” and “broadcast” writing style. (ch. 3,8,9) • Week 12 – Best descriptive writing: Find examples of stories that use descriptive details to make you see, hear or feel what the reporter saw, heard or touched. (Harrower p.72 and ch.6) • Week 13 – Public relations: Find one or two stories that look like “handouts” that involved no real reporting, just whatever a publicist sent to the newspaper. Suggest ways that additional reporting could have made the stories better. (Harrower ch.10) • Week 14 – Ethics: Find one or two stories that show careful ethical behavior by the reporter – or not. What makes a story too sensational, too personal or too graphic? (Harrower ch.7) 6 Due on Thursdays: Textbook-reading reports On at least five Thursdays, turn in a brief textbook-reading report as described below. The goal is to point out especially helpful or especially difficult parts of the material. The first report is due the second Thursday of the semester, on chapters one and two. Next, do at least one report each on chapters 3 and 4 before the end of February. The other Thursdays are up to you. We’ll be working on some chapters for several weeks, and weaving in and out of others. Your Thursday reports should answer the following questions about your readings. Answer each question in three or four grammatical sentences. • What is the most memorable and valuable thing that you are confident you learned from your past week’s textbook reading and its exercises? • What major problem did you have with your latest reading & exercises, or what topic from the readings would you like reviewed more in class? For full credit, your report should show some thought, not be a last-minute exercise in saying, “oops, I forgot my homework and have to write a report.” COPY FORMAT All your writing in this class – which newspaper people call “copy” -- should be typewritten, double- spaced, with your name, class section, the date submitted and a brief identifying “slug” at the top left corner. (“Slug” is news jargon for a short identifier, such as “Floyd fire” or “Ch. 2 Report.”) If a story is more than a page long, put “MORE” at the bottom of every page but the last. Put “-30-“ or “END” at the bottom of the last page. Carefully proofread everything you write. Make editing corrections in ink or pencil, inserting words above the line and periods or commas below. See the back of the AP Stylebook for copy editing marks. 7 Basic News Writing -- Spring 09 Schedule date general topic chapters 1/20 T introductions to the course, the lab and each other 1 1/22 Th Defining news… Publication types and story types 2 1/27 T process, vocabulary & values 2 1/29 Th news today 2,8 2/3 T Choosing words, building sentences 3 2/5 Th AP Stylebook 3, AP 2/10 T Grammar, AP, spell, punctuation (GASP) 3, AP 2/12 Th GASP continued 3, AP 2/17 T Leads, styles & story structure 3 2/19 Th Leads, styles & story structure 4 2/24 T GASP midterm review 3, AP 2/26 Th Midterm editing exam 3, AP 3/3 T Background research & reporting 4, 5, 7 3/5 Th Speeches & meetings 4 & 5 SPRING BREAK 3/17 T Beats & sources 4,5,10 3/19 Th Public affairs & government news 5,7