JRN 400: Digital Story Package Assignment

So, our first stories are now done. Whether we did great or we think we can do better, it's important that we learn from this first assignment and keep building our skills in the little but busy time we have left.  

The best stories shared some important traits:

• Multiple people were interviewed
• A range of people were interviewed: people affected by an issue; people in charge of an issue; and people who are expert on an issue. Too many stories interviewed a bunch of people, but from only one of those source silos.
• Original pictures taken by the reporter of people doing what is being reported upon
• Strong proofreading and few grammatical and spelling errors
• Stories that structurally look like TV news stories, newspaper news stories and news magazine news stories, and not like term papers or personal essays.

Here are some strong examples of your work this week. Please take a look at each example in each medium and see what ideas you can get for the next round of stories.

http://news.jrn.msu.edu/2018/06/our-education-system-is-rapidly-changing/

news.jrn.msu.edu/2018/06/girl-scout-troop-6000-provides-stability-for-homeless-youth-in-nyc/

http://news.jrn.msu.edu/2018/06/feeling-the-squeeze-more-manhattan-natives-moving-to-nycs-boroughs/

Now, if you did not turn in this assignment please let me be clear: you are in deep, deep trouble and your ability to pass this class is now in serious doubt.

First, news is a deadline business; not meeting deadlines is simply not an option. Whether or not we are busy or having a bad day or nobody is calling us back, the 11 o'clock news must come on at 11 and it must have 30 minutes of news.

If we can't consistently overcome the challenges that come with meeting deadlines, we will not last long in this business. It isn't tolerated in the real media world and it won't be in this capstone class, where you are supposed to be demonstrating you are ready for the real world. I reserve the right to reject late assignments, and the more you have a history of missing deadlines the more reluctant I will be to accept late work.

Second, we just don't have enough time to make up assignments. Each of the next three weeks you will have two stories a week due. That doesn't leave a lot of time to play catch-up.

Third, please note the digital story package alone is around 20 percent of your final grade. That's a huge hole to dig out of.

I'm not saying any of this to be mean. I want to see everybody do well in this class. But I can't grade nothing, and time is running out.