Introduction to the course
Clickers - make sure you have your clicker and that it is registered properly. Here are the OIT instructions for registering your clicker. Bring it to class. You will need to be on Channel 5 for this course.
JEM 230 - Media reporting
As the name of the course implies, this class is about gathering information in a professional journalistic mannner and putting that information into a form that is appropriate for the medium and the audience.
What we want this course to do for students
- Develop knowledge of the theory and practice of reporting
Why do reporters do the things they do? Is it just habit, or are there reasons behind these professional practices.
- Increase their awareness of the world around them
This course emphasizes "public affairs reporting." What is that? Most journalists and journalism professors believe the most important journalism is to serve our social and political environment. One of the things that makes the United States of America unique is the openness of its society and its government to public scrutiny. Journalists are major players in this concept of openness.
This course, we hope, will make students more aware of how government works, of its importance and its complexity.
- Increase analytic abilities - thinking, making connections
One of the great joys of being a reporter is not just know what is going on before other people know but in being able to figure things out. A good reporter looks at the world and tries to make connections. Why does something occur? How do things work the way they do? What is the significance of what is happening? What are people not telling me about this subject? What are other points of view about a subject that I need to know?
A reporter is always learning something new, always exploring, always asking why.
- Develop skills in various types of information presentation
Modern media demand a wide variety of skills. You have to know how to write in various forms. You have to know how to find information, whom to interview and when, how to record and edit audio, how to shoot pictures, how to shoot and edit video, how to upload all of these forms to a website and content management system.
This is why we hit the ground running in this course; it's why the audio slideshow is your first assignment. You need to get up to speed quickly so that we can do what this course demands of us.
- Add to the understanding of the formalities of journalism
Journalism is a well-developed discipline that carries certain expectations of those who practice it. These expectations -- unlike those of the legal or medical professions -- are not written into law. Rather, they are simply widely accepted by practicing journalists.
- Increase and expand writing skills
Writing is a multi-dimensional task. As a journalist you will be expected to put infomration into various forms -- news stories, summary paragraphs, cutlines for pictures, scripts for audio and video stories, headline, bullet points, etc. JEM 200 introduced you to many of these forms. This course will give you plent of practice in using them.
Reporting
Reporting and writing are the two most basic skills of the journalist. There are where journalism begins.
Reporting presents an audience with new, timely information. This information should be
- significant
- interesting
- verifable
Course operations
Lectures and writing sections. As with JEM 200, this course is divided into a once-a-week lecture section and reporting sections that meet separate. Seventy percent (70 percent) of your final average will be derived from the reporting sections, and 30 percent will come from the lecture.
Clickers required.
Lecture notes are posted when possible and appropriate.
Pay attention to your reporting section instructors.
Pay attention to the Blackboard sites for the lecture and your reporting section.
Your responsibilties as a student:
- prepare
- attend
- engage
Textbook, website and readings. No textbook is required from this course. There is, however, a strong connection between this course and JEM 200. The text for that course, Writing for the Mass Media, will be referenced. You can access the website for Writing for the Mass Media with this link.
You may also be assigned additional readings for which you will be responsible on quizzes and tests.
Audio slideshow assignment
• Audio slideshow assignment
• Audio slideshows
• Seven steps to an audio slideshow
Audacity - an easy-to-learn sound editing program. You can use Audacity to record your audio and then edit it, or you can call a standard audio file into Audacity and edit it.
Picasa - Google's free software that allows you to create an album of pictures, align those pictures into a slideshow, marry that slideshow with an audio file (MP3), make a video and upload it to your YouTube account in some easy and simple steps.
News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress;
all the rest is advertising.
Lord Northcliffe
Lord Northcliffe was an English press baron in the first half of the 20th century. At various times he owned the Times of London, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Mirror. He was minister of propaganda during World War II.
Weekly news quiz
You can find some of the quiz questions that might be asked in lecture here.
And finally . . .
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