So we're about to start our weekly out-of-class story cycles, where you will have about 1-2 weeks per story to go from approved idea to to final version, with two stories due every week.
Monday, May 28, 2018
Friday, May 25, 2018
Your Stories: A Reminder
Please keep in mind all reporting on our stories must be ORIGINAL reporting. That means we don't cite articles from other media (according to CNN; The New York Times reported ... ) or other things we found online (MSU's Web site said; according to Wikipedia ... ). Instead, we talk to researchers and participants and people in charge of the issue directly ourselves, and we look at studies and research papers and documents directly ourselves.
So, if you're doing a story about the proposed U.S.-North Korea summit, you should NOT cite reporting from CNN and The New York Times; you should reach out to a political science prof who is expert on the issue and interview him or her; you should try to get a hold of government officials or in lieu of that, get press releases directly from their Web sites, and so on.
That's the difference between doing a term paper and a new story: for a term paper we cite the work of others, but for a news story we do the work ourselves.
Now, how do we find people to talk to? One way is to look at news stories done by others. See who they interviewed and what documents they cited, and then try to get a hold of those people directly yourself and get those documents yourself for your own review.
No matter how we do this, the heart of journalism is doing interviews directly with people involved in your issue. We need to make sure we are doing that.
So, if you're doing a story about the proposed U.S.-North Korea summit, you should NOT cite reporting from CNN and The New York Times; you should reach out to a political science prof who is expert on the issue and interview him or her; you should try to get a hold of government officials or in lieu of that, get press releases directly from their Web sites, and so on.
That's the difference between doing a term paper and a new story: for a term paper we cite the work of others, but for a news story we do the work ourselves.
Now, how do we find people to talk to? One way is to look at news stories done by others. See who they interviewed and what documents they cited, and then try to get a hold of those people directly yourself and get those documents yourself for your own review.
No matter how we do this, the heart of journalism is doing interviews directly with people involved in your issue. We need to make sure we are doing that.
Digital Story Package: The Next Step
By now, you should have your digital story package idea approved. Now, it's time to start working on your actual story package.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
JRN 400: Meet Your Team Leaders!
The Spartan Newsroom trends and issues team (that's us!) for the summer of 2018 now has leadership. Let's meet them!
JRN 400: Our Topics!
We're doing something a bit different this semester. In past semesters, we had one overarching class issue that we all worked to write about, using different angles and mediums. This term, we're letting each of you pick your own trend or issue. I wasn't sure how it was going to go but honestly, I'm really impressed with what you all came up with. Here are the ideas; please take a look at all of them and the details of each to see if it can give you ideas and inspiration for how to best do your topic:
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Portfolios: Your Assignment
There's a reason we did assignments on personal branding, work samples, resume creation and such: now, we will bring all that together and (if you don't already have one) create a portfolio site.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Range of Sources
Journalism isn't about just getting one side and the other side. That's just enabling an argument. What we're trying to do is get a range of ideas and perspectives, in hopes of capturing all the degrees of complexity of a story and discovering a larger truth as a result.
Alternative Story Forms
As journalists in a multimedia world, we should resist defaulting to medium; that is, if we are a writer, we shouldn't automatically write a story; we should consider using video or other story forms if that what best expresses the context of the story, and best connects the topic with the audience.
One medium we're exploring now is alternative story forms, also known as ASFs, where you take non-traditional methods of presenting, sharing and posting information that gets away from the traditional story structure.
Finding Story Ideas
HOW TO FIND GOOD
STORY IDEAS
We can make finding good story ideas so much harder than it
really should be. So often, we are looking for the spectacular and the obvious,
when many great stories are hidden in plain sight, if only we would be curious
and then act upon that curiosity.
Using Data in Storytelling
Data doesn’t have to be boring.
It’s all in connecting the numbers to human stories. In your reading this week,
you have several examples of how data can be used in different ways to help us
understand who we are.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Digital Story Package: Assignment
Today we will start on what the centerpiece of this class really is: conceptualizing, researching and creating stories on our assigned topics. The first of such stories we do will be the most detailed and thoroughly-reported. This assignment is called our digital story package.
Friday, May 18, 2018
Cover Letters: Your Assignment
Using the tips and examples from the related blog posts that are posted here, create a generic cover letter for yourself to pitch for a specific job in an industry you want to get into. It can be a real or imagined news organization; your call.
Please create the cover letter in a Word document, and then attach it to an email addressed to omars@msu.edu. Your deadline will be no later than 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 22.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Resumes: Your Assignment
For this assignment, you should create a real resume for yourself, or update/modify the one you have. Please use the following posts to get some idea and direction on how to do that.
Please create a resume in a Word doc or a PDF and email that to omars@msu.edu. Your deadline will be no later than 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 22. Thanks!
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Personal Brand: Assignment
Your brand is a representation of you. Think about the professional brand that you want to present to others. How do you want other people to see you? Think about key words and visual images that help tell the story of you.
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
JRN 400: Survey Is Here!
What I need you to do is to cut-and-paste the following survey from here to a Word document, fill it out and then email it to me at omars@msu.edu.
JRN 400: Leadership and Editing
This semester, I will select one or more students to serve as managing editors for this class. Student editors will be required to approve story ideas from reporters; work with them in molding their stories; and make sure they are meeting deadlines. They will also have to copy edit stories as needed.
Your JRN 400 Topic: An Assignment
What we do in JRN 400 classes is pick a general topic and then drill into it thoroughly.
JRN 400: First-Day Assighments Round-Up
To sum up, this is what we need to start working on today. There will be more later this week:
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