Syllabus for Fall 2012

NEWS MANAGEMENT AND PRODUCTION

FALL 2012

Adviser: Pamela Moreland

Room: Brawner Hall, Room 402

Phone: 415.246.1578 (Yes, you can text to this number)

Office hours: Tuesday, 4-5 p.m.

Email: Pamela.moreland@menlo.edu

SUMMARY:

In this class, we will write, edit, design and publish The Menlo Oak, the school’s student news website. Microsoft Word, Blogger, Photoshop, YouTube, Storify, Facebook, Pintrest and other software programs are used to produce content, publish, and market the site. In addition, students will learn reporting, writing and multimedia skills that will serve as a foundation for all types of 21^st century communications endeavors.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Associated Press Style Book

DIGITAL CONNECTIONS:

Menlo Oak website:

http://www.menlooak.com

Class blog:

http://menlonewsprod.blogspot.com/

GRADING:

Attendance: 20%

Published work: 40%

Non-published work: 30%

Weekly Story Ideas: 5%

Weekly Style Quizzes: 5%

WEEK BY WEEK OUTLINE:

Week 1: Opening Day. Overview. Fill out class questionnaire. Reporting building blocks. First Five Paragraphs: A template for clear writing.  Storify Basics.

 Homework: “What’s new at Menlo” story idea. Due: Friday, 6 p.m.

Week 2:  More First Five Paragraphs. Interviewing techniques. In-class writing assignment Blogger Basics. Storify practice

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Read and prepare to discuss in class your 2-3 paragraph view of “Elements of Journalism.” (Handout).

Week 3: Discuss “Elements of Journalism.  Crafting a story. AP Style overview. Self-editing and copy editing skills. Blogger practice.  Photoshop Basics (Photo editing for the Menlo Oak: icons vs. story-level photos).

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m.  Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.

Week 4: AP Style Quiz.  Effective use of Quotations in Stories. Photoshop practice.  College Publisher basics.

Homework: Story Ideas: Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.  Bring your favorite print headline to next class.

Week 5: AP Style Quiz. Writing Headlines: Digital vs. Print and SEO techniques. College Publisher practice.

Homework:  Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.

Week 6: AP Style Quiz.  How to Write Effective Opinion Articles. College Publisher Practice: Menlo Oak production.

 Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Digital Media Law handout: Fair Use. Write 2-3 paragraph view on issue and be prepared to discuss in next week’s class.

Week 7: AP Style Quiz.  Discuss Fair Use issues. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.

Week 8: AP Style Quiz.  Presidential Election 2012: Content Audit. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7. Stories. Read and be ready to discuss content audit materials

Week 9: AP Style Quiz.  Building content audit spreadsheets. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Name of publication to be used in content audit. Due: Friday, 6 p.m.

Week 10: Discuss progress of content audits. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Handout: Case Study on using Facebook, Twitter and other online resources as material for stories. Write 2-3 paragraph view point and prepare to discuss in class.

Week 11: Happy Halloween!  Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Content Audit Due: Friday, 6 p.m.

Week 12:   Election Post-mortem. Discussion of Use of online resources in reporting. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.

Week 13:   Final project discussion/assignment. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.

 Week 14: Thanksgiving break (no class).

Homework: Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Final project description due Nov. 21.

Week 15: Work on final project in class. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories

Week 16:   Work on Final Project. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories

                                                                             

Final Project Due

Story Ideas: Don't Leave Yourself at the Door

It's your world. Write about it. That's the goal of submitting weekly story ideas.

Spotting and developing a story is a skill. First, look at yourself. What music are you listening to? What are you reading and why? Do you belong to any campus clubs or groups? What's your major and why are you majoring in that subject? What makes you worry? What are your friends talking about? What makes them worry?

The answers to any of these questions make a good foundation for a story idea., and eventually, a great story for publication.

Every student in News Management & Production is required to submit a story idea every week. This isn't difficulty.

Just write one fat paragraph (3-4 sentences) on the story. Tell me the best way to tell this story (narrative, video, audio, even animation). If you want to tell the story in text, you also need to describe an image (photograph) that you would use to illustrate the story.

Share it with me in Google Docs, or email it to me.

Here's an example of a great New York Times story that I bet started with a story idea from a college intern.

The story is about harassment of females playing online video games.

In addition to being a great story, check out the embedded links to video and original sources.

How--and When--to Use Press Releases in Your Writing, Reporting

It has rightfully been a tough summer for reporters accused of plagiarism.

A Yale grad, and Wall Street Journal intern, was fired for making up people and quotes.

A Kansas City Star reporter was fired after his editors said he lifted material from press releases several times dating back to 2008.

The KC Star reporter said that using unattributed material from press releases was a "widespread practice in journalism (we will talk more about whether that statement is true or not at a later date).

The Poynter Institute has a good checklist on how to, and when to, incorporate press release material in your work. Check it out and let me know what you think.

A Great Example of a Multimedia Story Package

 This New York Times multimedia package put together by the New York Times on pop music vocal producer Kuk Harrell deserves a lot of praise.

The print story was well-written and the interior pages well-designed (I saved a copy if you want to see it). It works for those who only get their information to print and who are satisfied with the traditional media-to-audience journalistic approach.

But if you only read part of the story, and respond better to getting your news and information through audio and visuals, you have to head to the web version. There, you will find the print story, in some cases it is the secondary piece to the video and the interactive feature. The video features vocal producer Harrell and a group of singers he's producing. If you listen closely, you can hear the quotes that are in the story.

The best part of the package is the interactive "Build Your Own Pop Song" feature. Using Harrell's technique, you can build part of a song produced by Harrell. After you listen to your work, you can click to hear Harrell's choices. You can also listen to the complete song.

This is a great package and a good starting point for re-imagining how pop music--no all music--should be covered in a digital world.

Click here and enjoy.

Is it ever OK to go 'undercover' to get a story or help a client?

Her business card said, "Stephanie Harnett, senior associate, Mercury Public Affairs."  But the union organizers remembers that she said she was a University of Southern California journalism student when she interviewed them.

Now Harnett is out of a job. The company she worked for, and the client she was representing, have denounced her and her undercover tactics.

For a journalist, it is should be a difficult and a last-ditch decision, to go undercover to get a story. Editors must be involved in the decision. 

Gawker's Hamilton Nolan, who broke the story, said it best on how the PR world views going undercover to get information. 

“Even within the PR industry it is considered horribly unethical and scandalous to pose as a reporter in order to spy for a client.” 

Click here to read a round up of coverage and comments. 

Fast Company: Content Curators are New Web Superheroes

The print and online magazine that reports on what "fast companies (entrepreneurs and cutting-edge ventures) are doing has taken a look at the growing importance of curators.

"Curation is the act of individuals with a passion for a content area to find, contextualize, and organize information. Curators provide a consistent update regarding what's interesting, happening, and cool in their focus. Curators tend to have a unique and consistent point of view--providing a reliable context for the content that they discover and organize," according to a blog post by Steven Rosenbaum.

He goes on to list some best curation pratices and highlights some of the current curation tools (we used a couple that he mentions--Storify and Pinterest--in class this semester).

"One thing I'm sure of," Rosenbaum adds, "the web is going to keep growing fast. And the solution to making sense of the massive volume is a new engaged partnership between humans and machines."

Click here to read the complete post. 

Three Plagiarism Cases That Didn't Have to Happen

Remember journalism's rule No. 5 "Be skeptical of everything. If your mother says she loves you, check it out."

Here are three examples where online journalists say they accidentally plagiarized. Their excuse: They thought they copying information from a press release that was sent by a friend. 

That's really no excuse. 

1. Even if "a friend" sends you information about a potential story, it is up to you to verify that information.

2. Press releases can be wrong.  As a journalist, you should verify any and all information, including quotes, contained in the release. Yes, that means re-reporting information in the release.

3. Don't forget attribution, even when using information from a press release. At the bare minimum, attribution, that is telling the reader where you got the information, could save you the embarrassment of being accused of plagiarism.

Click here to read how the Poynter Institute described this series of plagiarism cases. The also are links to the original stories, and the apologies issued by the reporters who made the errors.