JO721 Intro to Reporting
Prof. Chris Daly
Fall 2015 / Boston University
“The job of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
— Finley Peter Dunne, 1902
Contacts:
Office: Alden Hall, Room 307B.
Office phone: 353–4295
E-mail: chrisdaly44@gmail.com
Office hours: Tues, Thurs, 10–11 and 1–2.
Wed, 11–1
Web: http://journalismprofessor.com
Twitter: @profdaly
Required reading:
Covering America, by Christopher B. Daly
Writing and Reporting News, (8th Edition, or earlier) by Carole Rich.
The Elements of Style, Strunk and White.
The Associated Press Stylebook. OR SMARTPHONE APP
ALSO READ: * Each day’s Boston Globe and New York Times.
Recommended websites: Romenesko, Nieman Journalism Lab, Journalist’s Resource, Vox, Poynter Media Watch, CNN’s Reliable Sources, http://journalismprofessor.com
Course Description:
This writing-intensive course introduces the essential elements of journalism, with an emphasis on reporting and writing “hard news” for all media platforms. We will create a place where students can learn the craft and read each other’s work in a helpful arena. Students will write and re-write regularly to master key types of news stories.
This pre-professional course requires a serious commitment during the term but has no final exam. Assignments will require reporting on days other than class days and may involve travel off-campus and at night. Students must create a website or set up an electronic portfolio of all work. Attendance is vital. Plan to work alone on some assignments and in teams on others.
Terms:
We will emulate a newsroom environment. You will be expected to:
— be accurate with names and all other details,
— use correct grammar and spelling,
— follow AP style,
— express yourself clearly and concisely,
— keep an electronic portfolio of all your work.
— meet all deadlines, without exception.
Grades:
Grades will depend on the quality of your written work and on class participation. Attendance is essential. There will be regular assignments but no final exam.
80% — written assignments
10% — class participation
10% — engagement, improvement
You may also earn “extra credit” by having stories accepted by the BU News Service or by any professional news organization.
Professional Portfolio site:
You will create and maintain an “electronic portfolio” — a website where you will post edited versions of all stories written for class with the exception of class-based simulations. This means that any time you write an actual story, based on real reporting (i.e., a speech story, a meeting story, a live event story, etc.), you will post a copy on your blog, under a headline and your byline, and accompanied by “art” when appropriate (maps, photos, etc., while always respecting copyright laws). Design of the blog is up to you, but from your first day in the program you should view this as a way to show potential employers samples of your work. I strongly urge you to continue this blog indefinitely, including on it stories you write for other classes, as well as for student and professional publications and web sites.
Recording of Classes
Classroom proceedings may be recorded for purposes including, but not limited to, student illness, religious holidays, disability accommodations, or student course review. Recording of classes by students is normally not allowed at B.U., but I will permit it in my section. Also note: if you do not understand something that is said in class, INTERRUPT and get a clarification.
Plagiarism:
All work must be original. The copying or stealing of others’ work is illegal, immoral, degrading and harmful to our craft. Do not do it, and do not tolerate it in others. Plagiarism may result in a failing grade and other academic penalties. We will discuss this further in class.
Goals:
This is the core course for all Journalism master’s degree candidates. The goal is to train you in the essential skills of news-gathering and writing so that you can thrive as working journalists in all media. The course is based in the classroom, but you are expected to learn and adhere to professional newsroom standards. The course focuses on essential practices and principles that apply to reporters and editors at all media.
Outcomes:
By the end of the semester you will be expected to:
ü Understand the basic history and principles of U.S. journalism.
ü Understand how to assign values to raw information and be able to organize the information into a news story.
ü Be proficient in writing various types of news ledes, including main point ledes and soft ledes.
ü Demonstrate basic skills in researching, reporting and writing news stories.
ü Demonstrate interviewing skills — the ability to get information from sources.
ü Demonstrate proficiency in covering actual news events, including the operations of municipal governments.
ü Demonstrate an ability to independently come up with ideas for stories and to produce stories based on those ideas.
Your instructor:
Chris Daly is a veteran journalist with experience in wire services, newspapers, magazines, books and online. A Harvard graduate, he spent 10 years at The Associated Press. From 1989 to 1997, he covered New England for The Washington Post. He holds a master’s degree in history from the University of North Carolina, where he was a co-author of Like a Family, a social history of the South’s industrialization. He is the author of the prize-winning 2012 book Covering America.
He is an active free-lance writer, whose work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The American Prospect, The Cairo Review, Columbia Journalism Review, Parents, New England Monthly, Boston and other magazines. He has also taught journalism at Harvard and Brandeis. He comments on journalism at www.journalismprofessor.com
Twitter handle: @profdaly
LET THE GREAT ADVENTURE BEGIN!
Schedule:
WEEK 1: Foundations of journalism
Getting acquainted. Defining journalism. Print and visual traditions.
Discussion:
Based on reading “Covering America,” what is the essence of journalism? How is it different from advertising, public relations, propaganda, fiction? Whom does the journalist serve?
What is the meaning of the quote at the top?
To read: Rich: chap. 1–5; appendices A,B.
Also, inside back cover.
To do: sketch profile of classmate/ rewrite
WEEK 2: Fundamentals of journalism
Basics: original reporting, attribution.
Producing professional text. The first graf. Hard and soft ledes. Pyramids, narratives, buried ledes. Types of ledes: Anecdotal, paradoxical, Homeric, superlatives and more. When to use which.
The “nut graf.” The body of a story. Organizing longer pieces. Endings.
To read: Rich, chaps ______________.
Clark, “The Pyramid of Competence”
Strunk & White, Part V
To do: write ledes for text, radio, and online.
Launch your website
WEEK 3: Interviewing
Talking with a purpose. The formal and informal interview. What to do before, during and after. Friendly and hostile interviews. Public people and private people.
The telephone/video interview.
Choosing quotes. Handling quotes in the body of the story.
Discussion:
How is an interview different from a social conversation? What do we owe our subjects? Where can we find role models?
To read: Rich, chaps_____________.
Strunk & White, Part II.
To do: reax piece on world news.
Visit and critique websites.
WEEK 4: Deadline stories
Writing stories with a narrow focus, few sources: obits, speeches, news releases.
To read: Rich, chaps _____________.
Strunk & White, Part III.
To do: write an obit, cover a speech.
WEEK 5: Deadline stories II
Practice in finding stories, reporting them and writing them.
To read: Rich, chap. 20.
To do: cover a press release.
WEEK 6: Complex stories I
Developing more complicated stories. Using social media for reporting.
To read: Rich, chap ________________.
To do: Report a “talker” about your ethinic/racial community.
WEEK 7: Complex stories II (No class Tues)
Writing queries. Doing homework, making the pitch, assembling the package. Dealing with rejections.
To read: Rich, chap ______________.
To do: Write a query.
WEEK 8: Covering government.
Navigating through state and local government. Meetings. Budgets. Operations.
To read: Rich, chap _____________.
To do: Do a municipal story (meeting/ debate/ policy)
WEEK 9: Covering government II
To do: Do a Legislative story
WEEK 10: Covering crime I (police)
Working with cops. Covering courts
Discussion:
Should journalists cover crime?
If so, how? If not, why not?
To read: Rich, chap. 26, 27.
To do: Cover an incident.
WEEK 11: Covering issues in the news (part I)
Find an issue where people disagree. Working with sources, documents and databases.
Story conference.
To do: A 1,500-word feature.
WEEK 12: Covering issues in the news (II)
Develop your “issue” story.
WEEK 13: Issues (cont.) (No class Thurs.)
In-class workshops:
— pitching your ideas
— revising your work.
To do: Rewrite story.
WEEK 14: News features.
Guest speaker (TBA)
To do: post your feature story on your website. Use social media to build readers.
WEEK 15: Summing up
Last class on Dec. 10
Review, course evaluations.
Adjourn to O’Leary’s Pub.
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