Course ID: | JOUR 3090. 3 hours. |
Course Title: | Reporting I: Critical Skills for Reporting and Storytelling |
Course Description: | Students will report, write, and edit various journalistic story types for digital, print, and broadcast platforms that adhere to professional and ethical standards of journalism in this experiential learning course. |
Oasis Title: | Reporting I |
Prerequisite: | Permission of department |
Semester Course Offered: | Offered fall and spring semester every year. |
Grading System: | A-F (Traditional) |
|
Course Objectives: | -Students will learn the essentials of news gathering and writing for digital, print, and broadcast platforms.
-Students will learn to determine newsworthiness and the importance of timeliness, information, and impact in storytelling.
-Students will learn the basic framing of stories for different audiences.
-Students will learn to make ethical judgments in their journalistic endeavors.
-Students will learn the mechanics of covering a beat — a specialized area of focus — in our community by developing primary sources, generating ideas, interviewing people, fact-checking, writing, and editing.
-Students will learn the importance of verification and accuracy.
-Students will write on deadline key essential journalistic stories — such as event and meeting coverage, a news conference story, and a profile of an individual.
-Students will learn to use the AP Stylebook and a local style guide for consistent writing across platforms.
-Students will demonstrate competency as writers as they structure stories based on the audience, time frame, and platform.
-Students will be adaptable and flexible due to the demands of a fast-changing industry.
-Students will start a professional digital portfolio that they will update throughout their major. |
Topical Outline: | Elements of newsworthiness
Verifying information
Identifying and using primary sources
Interviewing sources
Mechanics of writing, including AP Style, grammar, and punctuation
Copyediting
Covering a beat
Fact-checking
News story structures
Basic local stories
Reporting and writing for digital media
Reporting and writing for print media
Reporting and writing for video
Reporting and writing for audio
Writing headlines, keywords, and tags
Building a digital portfolio |