JEM 230 - Media reporting
Lecture syllabus
Coordinator:
Jim Stovall
School of Journalism and Electronic Media
333 Communications UEB
974-5109
stovall@utk.edu
Web site: http://www.jem230.com/
Fall 2010: Tuesday, 5:05 to 6:20 p.m., 309 Walters Life Sciences Building
Prerequisite: JEM 200 - Media writing
This weekly lecture section supplements the instruction and practice in news writing that you will receive in your lab section. The lecture will give you information that you will need to be successful in your reporting section lab.
In order to be successful in this course, you will need to have consistent online access. In addition, you should have access to a digital audio recorder and a digital camera, and you should be comfortable and confident in taking pictures from the camera and uploading them to web sites or servers.
Goals of the course
- prepare students in techniques of gathering and disseminating information in a multiplatform journalistic world
- emphasize the importance of professional and ethical practices
- increase the awareness among students about the importance of journalism to the democratic process
- develop a greater appreciation of the First Amendment freedoms of speech and press
- allow students to develop experience with tools of information presentation: text, pictures, audio and video
- develop students' understanding of the three sources of information: personal, stored (public records), and observational
- provide students with using standard hardware and software of multimedia reporting
All students should complete the following during the semester:
-- an audio slide show (first assignment)
-- interviews with public officials (city and county government; university officials; school boards and other quasi-public bodies)
-- coverage of governmental or political meetings or events (examples: regularly scheduled meetings, press conference, opening or announcement, political rally, etc.)
-- article based on review of public records
-- profile of public official or public figure
Reporting section instructors
Every student is enrolled in a reporting section that meets at a different time from the lecture. The following are the reporting section instructors for Fall 2010:
- Dr. Amber Roessner Syllabus for section 001; section 003
- Dr. Syrenthia Robinson
- Dr. Mark Harmon
- Dr. Ed Caudill: Syllabus for section 007;
Grades
Thirty percent of the grade for JEM 230 will come from this lecture section. (The other 70 percent will come from your work in your reporting section.) We will usually begin the lecture with a news quiz, which helps us record your attendance and which will contribute to the 30 percent of your grade. There will be two exams covering the lecture and text material during the semester. Each will count about 10 percent of the grade.
Attendance
You are expected to attend all lectures, and you are expected to be on time. (Those who arrive after the news quiz will not be counted as present; those who leave the lecture early will not be counted as present and will be penalized for academic dishonesty.) If you miss more than three lectures, we will assume that you have dropped the course.
Individual section instructors will set attendance policies for their labs. In general, however, they will adhere to the following principle: attendance in this course is mandatory, not optional.
Clickers - TurningPoint Polling System
The lecture for JEM 200 requires use of the clicker system adopted by the University of Tennesse, the TurningPoint Polling System. You can register you clicker by following the steps listed on this UT-OIT site.
Why do you need a clicker for this course? Lisa Gary, a JEM 200 instructor, has put together a good FAQ on clickers for her CCI 150 class. Much of what she says about them applies to JEM 200. You might take a look at that.
Academic honesty
University policies regarding honesty can be found in Hilltopics, the official student handbook. You can download this handbook as a PDF file at this page. Your rights and responsibilities are explained in detail. In all JEM 200 labs plagiarism, misrepresentation or any form of cheating is a serious offense. In the lecture section, a minimum penalty would be a failing grade on a quiz. Each lab instructor will explain lab rules.
CCI Diversity Statement
(College of Communication and Information Bylaws, Section II-C)
The College of Communication and Information recognizes that a college diverse in its people, curricula, scholarship, research, and creative activities expands opportunities for intellectual inquiry and engagement, helps students develop critical thinking skills, and prepares students for social and civic responsibilities. All members of the College benefit from diversity and the quality of learning, research, scholarship and creative activities is enhanced by a climate of inclusion, understanding and appreciation of differences and the full range of human experience. As a result, the College is committed to diversity and equal opportunity and it recognizes that it must represent the diversity inherent in American society. The College is acutely aware that diversity and fairness are foundations that unite the College's faculty, staff, students, and the larger communication and information community (see http://www.cci.utk.edu/diversity-statement for CCI's full Diversity Statement).
Texts
No text is required for this course.
How things work
Each section of JEM 230 operates under the direction of the section instructor. Jim Stovall, the instructor for the lecture section, is the coordinator for the course. As such, he helps assure that all sections of the course are following the same track and that all students are getting basically the same experience. He is not a czar, however. Section instructors have the final word on policies and grading for their sections.
The Tennessee Journalist (TNJN.com)
The Tennessee Journalist is the student-operated news web site of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media. It is part of the curriculum of the School, and any course in the School may use TNJN as it sees fit. Posting decisions are made by the student staff of the site. A fuller explanation of the site, along with a video, can found here on JPROF. The Tennessee Journalist is a founding member of the Intercollegiate Online News Network (Join the Facebook group.)
We will follow the schedule below as a general outline for the course but will also remain flexible about the topics we cover. Occasionally, there will be a guest speaker who may not talk directly about the topic on the schedule. Students are responsible for lecture notes for each week. News quiz questions can usually be found at the end of each set of lecture notes.
Week 1 Introduction (first assignment: 2-3 minute audio slide show)
Lecture notes
Your first assignment for this cours is to produce and audio slideshow about some aspect of the beginning of the school year. (For those of you who took JEM 200 in the spring, you will remember that an audio slideshow was part of your final project. To help start your thinking about this assignment, check out these pages:
• Audio slideshow assignment
• Audio slideshows
• Seven steps to an audio slideshow
Week 2 Hardware and software review
We'll review some of the hardware and software students need to use to be successful in this course. We'll also hear from Dr. Ed Caudill on the development of newswriting styles. Check out the video intro to his talk on the lecture notes page.
Lecture notes
Week 3 Basics of reporting
Lecture notes
Week 4 Sources: Observation; judging credibility
Lecture notes
Week 5 Sources: Interviewing
Lecture notes
Week 6 Sources: Public records
Lecture notes
Week 7 Math for journalists
Lecture notes
Weeks 8 Test 1
Week 14
Week 15 - Test 2
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