CJ 321 -- Public Affairs Reporting
Fall 2000, Section A0A
9:30-10:45 a.m. Tuesday and Thursday, Hibbard 180; lab to be arranged
Instructor: Mike Dorsher, Ph.D. Telephone: 836-5729 (office)
Assistant Professor
Office: Hibbard 164 E-mail: mdorsher@uwec.edu
Office 1-4 p.m. Monday and Wednesday
hours: or by appointment
Course description and objectives
From the UWEC catalog: “Study and practice of news reporting and writing at community level. Special attention given to source development, interviewing, finding and using government records and documents.”
This course is essentially a follow-up to the basic news reporting and writing course, CJ 222. Ideally, you come to this course with at least a fundamental understanding of news reporting skills, of the importance of accuracy and fairness in reporting, of the different kinds of stories a reporter might cover and of basic news writing form. You also know Associated Press style.
In this course, you will learn about local government and how to cover it, along with the aspects of community life that fall under the general heading of “public affairs.” We will discuss how public policy decisions are made so that you can report on them.
The objectives of this course are to increase your understanding of the workings of local government, the role media play in public affairs and the interaction among society, media and government.
Textbooks
Schulte, Henry H. and DuFresne, Marcel P. (1994)
Getting the Story: An Advanced Guide to Beats, Records and Sources
New York: Macmillan College Publishing Co.
Weinberg, Steve (1996)
The Reporter’s Handbook: An Investigator’s Guide to Documents &
Techniques, 3rd ed.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press
Additional materials
If you don’t already have a copy of The Associated Press Stylebook, you must get one. Also, you must have access to one of the following dictionaries: Webster’s New World (the official dictionary of most major newsrooms), Webster’s Collegiate or its online version at http://www.m-w.com. You must read each issue of The Spectator and stay current on local, state and national news by reading newspapers or online news sites.
Grading
Your grade for the course will be based on class participation, several reporting and writing assignments, and a final project that you will produce and publish on the Web. Following are the weights assigned to each of these components:
Class participation…………………..10 percent
Covering your beat………………….20 percent
Reporting and writing assignments…50 percent
Final project…………………………20 percent
The criteria for grading will
be:
A -- The story basically is ready for publication. It shows mastery
of accuracy, news judgment, reporting, writing, spelling, grammar and AP style
– in that order of importance.
B -- An assignment handled fairly well with no major errors, but the
story needs some rewriting and polishing before it is ready for publication.
C -- Some reporting or writing problems are evident, or there is a major
flaw in organization, such as a buried lead. The story still needs extensive
editing and rewriting.
D -- A poor article, lacking basic reporting and writing skills (in
spelling, grammar, flow, AP style and/or balance).
F -- A story that could be libelous or has one or more factual errors in
it.
(-1.0) -- A missed or late assignment.
All assignments will be
marked down:
- To an automatic F for any one statement that could be libelous or one error in fact, including a misspelling of a proper name.
- One full grade for each misspelling or typo, other than a proper name.
- One-third of a full grade for each grammar error.
- One-sixth of a full grade for each violation of AP style, including punctuation, sexism and racism.
Attendance
Students must attend all class sessions, because there will be no other way to make up assignments, get instructions and feedback, or receive credit for class participation. In anticipation of emergencies, unavoidable circumstances and temporary acts of insanity or carelessness, everyone’s lowest grade among the six class assignments will be dropped. Your grade on the final project, however, will not be dropped for any reason. If you will be absent from class for religious reasons or intercollegiate athletics participation, you must notify the instructor early in the semester and make arrangements for completing the work missed. Students with documented disabilities will be accommodated; please contact the instructor during office hours. Students who do not attend the first class meeting without previously notifying the instructor or the chairman of the Department of Communication and Journalism may be dropped from the course in favor of another student waiting to enroll. The instructor will notify the associate dean of students about anyone absent from three consecutive classes without explanation.
Academic misconduct
Fabrication of information purported to be true and plagiarism (i.e., claiming the work of others as your own) are examples of academic misconduct, which will not be tolerated in this course. It will be met with penalties ranging from an oral reprimand to suspension or expulsion from the university.
Reporting and writing assignments
Note that there are six distinct reporting and writing assignments. Each is worth 10 percent of your final grade, after the assignment with the lowest grade is dropped. More details about these assignments will be provided in separate handouts.
Assignment 1: due Sept. 19. Pick a beat and gather as much information as you can about the people, issues and documents on this beat. This will be the basis for your semester-long news-gathering project. Put the information you collect into a folder, hand it in and be prepared to report on it to the class.
Having completed Assignment 1, you will continue to cover your “beat” all semester. Here you will be cast as a new reporter hired for our public affairs news Web site. You are required to meet every week with the editor (your instructor) to discuss what is happening on your beat. Your editor is generally knowledgeable about what is happening in Eau Claire and beyond, but he expects you, as the beat reporter, to know much more about your specific area of responsibility. Be prepared to answer your editor’s queries about recent events or issues.
Assignment 2: due Sept. 28. Cover a city council meeting in the city of your choice. Write a story about the most newsworthy action at that meeting.
Assignment 3: due Oct. 19. Cover a court case or write a news story spurred by a police report. Make sure it’s a story that your readers will want to read.
Assignment 4: due Nov. 2. Write a public policy-oriented news story about a candidate for local, state or national office. Publish it on the Web so students and others can use it in preparation for voting in the Nov. 7 general election.
Assignment 5: due Nov. 28. Write a news story about your beat based primarily on documents and data that you obtain – through the Freedom of Information Act, if necessary.
Assignment 6: due Dec. 12. Rewrite the news story from your beat, augmenting it with responses and other information from local or national expert sources.
Final Project: due Dec. 19. Rewrite the news story from your beat once again, this time supplementing it with anecdotal information from people affected by this news. Then publish your story on the Web, paginating it into at least three interconnected chunks, each of which contains hyperlinks to related documents, a picture or graphic and a discussion link or audio clip. For extra credit, you may elect to join a team of classmates that constructs a home page comprising summaries of each of our stories, with hyperlinks to the full stories.
Portfolio
Obtain a folder for this class. In this folder place copies or printouts of all of your six reporting and writing assignments. Before the final week of the semester, your editor will ask for these folders so he may review your portfolio.
Class schedule (Subject to changes – as announced in class and
reflected on the Web.)
Tuesday, Sept. 5: Introduction to the course – and to each other.
Thursday, Sept. 7: Interviewing skills; Assignments 1 and 2 detailed; Getting the Story, pp. 23-33; Reporter’s Handbook, Introduction and Chapter 2.
Tuesday, Sept. 12: Interview stories due; discussions: off the record and to tape or not? Reporter’s Handbook, Chapter 5.
Thursday, Sept. 14: Skills used in beat coverage; discussions: objectivity, undercover reporting, and whether beats are the best way to cover public affairs; Getting the Story, pp. 2-22.
Tuesday, Sept. 19: Covering city government; discussions: writing for sources; defining “communication” and “information”; Getting the Story, Chapter 4; Assignment 1 due.
Thursday, Sept. 21: Review of city council meetings covered; presentation of beat plans; discussion: Get the news up front!
Tuesday, Sept. 26: Covering criminal court cases; Getting the Story, Chapters 9 and 12; Reporter’s Handbook, Chapter 9; Assignment 3 detailed.
Thursday, Sept. 28: Review of AP style and grammar; meet in Schneider 109 computer lab to re-edit city council stories; Assignment 2 due at end of class.
Tuesday, Oct. 3: Covering civil court cases; Getting the Story, Chapter 10; Reporter’s Handbook, Chapter 10.
Thursday, Oct. 5: Open records laws and the Freedom of Information Act; Getting the Story, pp. 424-431; Reporter’s Handbook, pp. 53-57.
Tuesday, Oct. 10: Covering county government and special districts; discussion: making taxes understandable; Getting the Story, Chapters 5 and 7.
Thursday, Oct. 12: Covering campaigns; discussion: horse race vs. issue coverage; Getting the Story, Chapter 14; Assignment 4 detailed.
Tuesday, Oct. 17: Covering state government; discussion: beyond the inverted pyramid; Getting the Story, Chapter 6 and Chapter 14; Reporter’s Handbook, Chapter 6.
Thursday, Oct. 19: Meet in Schneider 109 computer lab to re-edit court stories; Assignment 3 due at end of class.
Tuesday, Oct. 24: Covering local schools and higher education; Getting the Story, Chapter 13; Reporter’s Handbook, Chapter 8.
Thursday, Oct. 26: Covering federal government; Getting the Story, Chapter 8; Reporter’s Handbook, Chapter 7.
Tuesday, Oct. 31: Meet in Brewer 50 computer lab to re-edit campaign stories.
Thursday, Nov. 2: Meet in Brewer 50 computer lab to publish campaign stories on the Web; Assignment 4 due at end of class, along with Source Information Forms.
Tuesday, Nov. 7: Election Day discussion: How well have the media done this campaign season?
Thursday, Nov. 9: No class meeting; download two copies of this news analysis form to review how the media did on election night and the day after.
Tuesday, Nov. 14: Introduction to computer-assisted reporting: spreadsheets and basic math for journalists; meet in the Hibbard 104 computer lab (not Schneider 109, which is being renovated); Getting the Story, Chapter 3; Reporter’s Handbook, Chapter 3.
Thursday, Nov. 16: Computer-assisted reporting, continued; meet in Brewer 50 computer lab; Reporter’s Handbook, Chapter 22.
Tuesday, Nov. 21: Ethics, privacy and public affairs reporting; Getting the Story, Chapter 20; Reporter’s Handbook, Chapter 23.
Thursday, Nov. 23: Happy Thanksgiving! No class.
Tuesday, Nov. 28: Meet in Schneider 109 computer lab to re-edit Assignment 5 stories.
Thursday, Nov. 30: Online journalism and nonlinear story telling: What can this medium add? Meet in Schneider 109 computer lab; Assignment 5 due at the start of class.
Tuesday, Dec. 5: Reporting on the environment, science, medicine and health; Getting the Story, Chapters 17 and 18; Reporter’s Handbook, Chapters 14 and 20.
Thursday, Dec. 7: Covering business and labor; Getting the Story, Chapters 15 and 16; Reporter’s Handbook, Chapter 12.
Tuesday, Dec. 12: Meet in Schneider 109 computer lab to re-edit stories; Assignment 6 due at end of class.
Thursday, Dec. 14: Meet in Schneider 109 computer lab to work on final projects.
Tuesday: Dec. 19, 10 a.m.: Final class; meet in Schneider 109 computer lab; Final Project due and published on the Web by noon. Source Information Forms also must be turned in.