1 COM 300 – Online Journalism – Winter 06-07 Instructor: Office: Office Hours: Office Phone: Class Location: Email: Blog: Dr. Ron Bishop PSA Building, Room 324 T and TH, 3:30-5, or by appointment 215-895-1823 Korman B-103 rcbsam@comcast.net www.futureofjourn.blogspot.com
Purpose of the Course: We will explore how to use the computer and the internet to add depth and context to news stories. Keep in mind, however, that these are just tools – they supplement, but do not replace, in-depth, aggressive reporting. We will conduct database analyses, and access a wide variety of records from governmental agencies, all in the pursuit of two news stories. Finally, we will explore the development of online journalism and blogging, and the changes they have brought to the craft of journalism. Text: Wulfemeyer, K.T. (2006) Online Newswriting. Blackwell. (Note: A copy of Wulfemeyer’s book is (or shortly will be) on reserve in Hagerty Library). Recommended Text: Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. (The AP Stylebook is available online and at most decent bookstores. A copy will also be placed on reserve in the library.
Online readings will be distributed as we go, either via email or via posts to the class blog. Please check in often.
Equipment: You should also have access to a digital camera, digital voice recorder, and (if possible a digital video camera (which shoots in and a digital voice recorder. These can be borrowed from Drexel’s terrific IMS (www.drexel.edu/ims) department. You should also get to know these websites – all of which are used by reporters to find information on a variety of subjects: www.powerreporting.com – Probably the best one-stop-shopping site for journalists on the web – at least of those I’ve seen. The sources are arranged by beat, and by subject area. It comes complete with a
2 “Newsroom Treasure Hunt” that I’d like you to try your hand at (more on that later).
www.reporter.org/desktop - Maintained by reporter Duff Wilson, this is a great starting point for reporters using the internet. Wilson has brought together all of the major search engines, “people search” tools, maps, and press, government, and business sites all in one place. www.compass.temple.edu – Maintained by Temple professor Ed Trayes, this site is similar to powerreporting.com. www.newslink.org – Links you to most news organizations (of every size) in the United States and other parts of the world. www.onlinejournalist.com - Run by Doug Collison, a reporter. Features sources, book reviews, and reporting tips. www.journaliststoolbox.com – Run by the American Press Institute. Even more sources for your dining and dancing pleasure. www.ire.org - Investigative Reporters and Editors. You can and should sign up for the investigative reporting listserv. It’s a great opportunity to watch and read as journalists hash out stories and discuss issues. www.nicar.org - National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting – Part of IRE, this organization offers resources to help reporters effectively use their computers, the internet, databases, etc. to compile their stories. NICAR, like IRE, only allows members to obtain the broadest range of material. Still, if you’re planning to embark on a career in journalism, it might be worth the money to join. www.facsnet.org - Offers an impressive array of resources “designed to help journalists find the information they need and to understand the subjects on which they report.” reporters.
This is just a start. We’ll be compiling a “group bookmark list” of additional sites as we
move through the term. Please email me (and post) the URL’s for any websites that you find helpful in your story research.
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And before we talk projects: You should become a regular consumer of news – at least
for the duration of the term. Online, print, broadcast/cable – the mix doesn’t matter, but your news “diet” should be rich in variety. The heavyweights are a good start – The New York Times (www.nytimes.com), The Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com), CNN (www.cnn.com) Time (www.time.com) and Newsweek (www.newsweek.com) – but don’t forget alternative news organizations like www.alternet.org and blogs like www.dailykos.com. There is also a host of online journalism-related sites out there to explore. For now, let me list two: www.buzzmachine.com, run by author and journalist Jeff Jarvis, and www.newsthink.com, run by former Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Baker. Check in with these folks early and often. Perhaps the most comprehensive site for our purposes will be Online Journalism Review (www.ojr.org). And for examples of really bad websites, check out www.webpagesthatsuck.com, which compiles examples of terrible web design. Projects First up: you will create your own blog, which will become your news vehicle for the duration of the term. Your stories, your miniprojects, your reactions to class discussions, your thoughts about life at Drexel and on planet Earth, will be posted here. Create your blog using one of the widely available websites designed for this purpose – these include www.blogger.com, www.textpattern.com, www.blogdrive.com, and www.wordpress.com. Come up with a catchy name for your blog, and then think carefully about the blog’s focus – your “beat,” as old-fashioned journalists would call it. Even though many bloggers expound on a variety of subjects, the most skilled bloggers direct their energies to the coverage of one area – sports (badjocks.com), politics (www.dailykos.com, www.talkingpointsmemo.com, www.littlegreenfootballs.com), news the mainstream media miss (www.commondreams.org, www.alternet.org, www.truthout.org – although these are standalone news services that include contributions from bloggers – www.huffingtonpost.com), and entertainment (www.tmz.com, www.thesmokinggun.com). In your first post, explain to your current and future readers why you decided to launch the blog. What gap does it fill in the blogging universe? What audience do you hope to serve? What can that audience expect of you in terms
4 of content, ideological bent, and tone of coverage? What won’t you include on the blog? And perhaps most important: will you produce actual content, or will you just use the blog as an ax-grinding exercise? Once your blog is established, send its URL to me (rcbsam@comcast.net) and to the rest of the class (I’ll send around the class email list). Each person in the class is responsible for checking (and responding to) the blogs at least one or two times a week during our journey. A note about content: you can post already published material (news stories, links, photos, audio/video clips) or links to this material to your blog; however, you MUST accurately cite the source of the material and you must provide your own interpretation of it. You can’t just say “I just read this totally bitchin’ article on snow globes.” You have to place the material in its proper context. Your blog should be up and fully operational by the end of week 2. You must make regular posts to it each week.
Story 1
At the heart of the course are two 1,500 word news stories. The topics are up to you. The first story, the final version of which is due at the end of Week 4, can be either a hard news or feature piece. We’ll briefly review the difference in class. The story, in its final form, should be posted on your blog, and must include: in-text links to related subjects, links to past coverage of the issue, and at least one photo taken by you (if you don’t own a digital camera, they can be borrowed from a friend, from me, or from the very kind folks at IMS) and placed in the story. You can use Photoshop, or even Microsoft’s Photo Story to accomplish this. The story should also include at least one audio file (wav., mp3) – usually, these are full interviews from which the quotes in your story are drawn, or clips that give the reader a sense of what it was like to be at the event, or talk to the subject of your story. Thus, while you can absolutely use email to conduct your interviews, it would make for a more compelling story if you do your interviews in person, and record them.
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To get started, download the Audacity audio program (www.audacity.com) to your computer. It’s free. I’ll explain more about how to use it as we go. You must include a list of links to the sources in your piece, as well as a list of contact information for the in-person sources.
Story 2
The second story will be more of an investigative piece. It should stem from questions about the actions of government, corporate, or even university officials that have not been answered to anyone’s satisfaction. The story (both stories, actually) should explore matters of importance. They should in some way impact the lives of your readers. There should be outrage, or the potential for outrage, at the conduct described in your coverage. A few examples for you to ponder: 1. Who inspects the tires on the school buses in your district – and how often? 2. Is the food in your local supermarket safely handled? 3. Do uniforms make schools safer, and students less likely to fight? 4. Do service learning programs actually produce long-term volunteers? 5. Is laser eye surgery safe – and why isn’t there more coverage of safety problems by journalists, particularly those who work for stations who accept a lot of advertising from laser eye centers and doctors? 6. If our kids are so obese, why have so many schools eliminated gym class – not to mention recess? The same rules apply here: the story must include links (both in-text and additional), a photo, and an audio file. We will also explore how to include video files in your stories. You will also create a podcast of this story using Audacity software. I also encourage you to become at least a semi-regular viewer of 60 Minutes (CBS, Channel 3, 7 p.m. Sundays), still putting out top-flight investigative journalism after more than 30 years, and NOW (PBS, Channel 12, 9:30 p.m. Fridays). The NOW website (a link from the PBS website – www.pbs.org) is by itself a great source of information on the stories that the mainstream media miss.
6 Start thinking about your topics ASAP, and email them to me once you’ve selected them. Post your research efforts to your blog, so that others in our group can help you with information and sources.
Final Project
The name of our class blog, The Future of Journalism (www.futureofjourn.blogspot.com), comes from the very real fear of newspaper publishers that newspapers as we know them may cease to exist in the not too distant future. But so far, they would probably admit that they haven’t quite figured out how to make internet journalism substantially into more than just repackaged print coverage. Here’s where you come in: in groups of 3-5, you will come up with a proposal for what journalism will look like – and how readers will consume their news – a decade from now. As for the approach and tactics, anything goes. You can argue for the complete disappearance of actual newspapers (which will make me very sad), the dissolution of network news, or (my idea, but feel free to steal it), the abolition of regularly scheduled newscasts, with news being provided only when the people and events merit interrupting our busy days. We have the technology, as Oscar Goldman, The Six Million Dollar Man’s (ask your parents) best buddy might say. Groups will present their proposals during our last regular class meeting (Week 10, session 2), and will also submit an 8-10 page “hard copy” version of their proposal to me. I will invite local news professionals to attend the final presentations.
Policies
Attendance
It’s vital that you attend, especially since we’ll be working together to complete the in-class projects. I will take attendance three times during the term, but I’ll select the dates at random. If you must miss class, please call me. If you miss more than three classes, you will be in danger of failing the course.
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Class Discussions and Mini-Projects
I encourage you to become an active participant in our in-class journeys. I will beg, cajole, prod, and finally insist that you toss your two cents in, at least occasionally. Computer-driven investigative reporting is a rugged, sometimes dirty, but ultimately fulfilling mission – and it keeps you off the streets. I will do my best not to dismiss anyone’s thinking on a subject, and I hope everyone else will do the same. I also will not shy away from any idea, no matter how unpopular or controversial it is. There is no place in a college classroom for political correctness.
Grading
As always, I work with a 100-point scale. Creation and satisfactory maintenance of your blog is worth up to 30 points. Each story is worth up to 20 points, as is the final “future of journalism” paper handed in by the teams. The presentation is worth 10 points. With Drexel’s plus-minus grading system now firmly entrenched, this means that: 98-100 = A+ 87-89 = B+ 77-79 = C+ 67-69 = D+ Below 60 = F 94-97 = A 83-86 = B 73-76 = C 63-66 = D 90-93 + A80-82 = B70-72 = C60-62 = D-
Plagiarism
If I discover that you’ve submitted work that isn’t your own, or failed to attribute information taken from an outside source, you will receive no points for the project for which the information was used.
Reading and Discussion Schedule
Wulfemeyer’s book is quick and to the point – you should try to finish it by the middle of the term. We’ll start with Sections 1 and 2, and move on from there. Let me lay out the first few weeks for you – remember that our path is subject to tangents and roads less taken:
8 Week 1 Internet basics; thinking of computers and the internet as tools – not the be-all and end-all of reporting. Using these tools to complement solid reporting. Evaluating the quality of information you find. We’ll engage in a quick review of journalism basics: quotes, relationships with sources, cultivating sources, use of anonymous sources, primary and secondary sources (how redundant can you get?). Is online information reliable? How can you tell? Week 2 Finding people – finding people who need people – they’re the luckiest people in the world. Sources: www.anywho.com, www.addresses.com, www.infospace.com, and www.investigateanyoneonline.com – a kind of one-stop shopping place for search tools. Power Reporting (www.powerreporting.com) is also a good starting point. Pay services like www.knowx.com are helpful, but a bit expensive. We’ll also talk about the value to reporters of email, discussion groups, listservs, message boards, and chat rooms. Week 3 Obtaining documents via the web. What’s fair game? Are the documents credible? A brief look at how law informs newsgathering: What the heck is a Sunshine Law anyway? A Shield Law? How does a journalist use the Freedom of Information Act, especially in light of changes made under John “I’m Really A Big Fan of Civil Liberties” Ashcroft. Sources: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (www.rcfp.org); the Poynter Institute (www.poynter.org); the First Amendment Center (www.firstamendmentcenter.org); individual states for their Open Meeting Laws – enter the state’s name and the phrase “Open Meeting Law” or “Sunshine Law.” I’ll map out the rest of our journey after we get started.
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Submissions
I should receive a hard copy version of all of your work, whether it’s in person the day the project is due, or via email (Word file attachments only, please). You should also post your stories and miniprojects (more on these in class) to your blog (once it’s up and running) and to our blog. Please note that there will be no final exam in this class.