SPRING 2012 JOURNALISM 3020 JOURNALISM PRODUCTION Monday, Wednesday 4:40p.m. 5:55 p.m.

; Hale 304 Journalism is the first rough draft of history. -Anonymous Instructor: Professor Dana C. Hackley, M.S. Office Hours: By Appointment or via Skype Telephone: 412-303-4110 (cell) University e-mail: dhackley@gmail.com Section A

Course description and goal: This course is designed to help students to officially jump headfirst into publishing and producing public messages to meet the needs of varying audiences. The course takes a pragmatic approach to the kinds of crossplatform storytelling future media professionals will find themselves having to produce as they enter the workforce. The course design combines theory with applied learning with the goal of bolstering the depth and breadth of the pre-professional portfolio. Students will focus on community identity and awareness, sourcing, database management, research strategies, law and ethics, and honing writing skills across platforms. Upon successful course completion students will be able to: Work in teams to produce visual and verbal messages for mass audiences Research appropriate public documents and secondary sources to better understand social, political, economic, and demographic details of a community Recognize the news value or angle demands across platforms (broadcast, print, online, social media) for assigned stories Write a news story for broadcast, print, or online platforms Articulate their own ethical perspectives on a variety of issues and challenges in their chosen professional field. Conduct effective interviews to obtain information University Policies: Please take the time to review these policies as they will be enforced during the course of this class. Statement on Academic Integrity Students with Disabilities Course Policies: These policies will be discussed in the first class meeting and enforced throughout the course of the semester. Attendance Students are required to attend all classes, arrive on time and be prepared for class. Because this class is structured in such a way as to emphasize teaching practical application, attendance is mandatory. In the event of an emergency or an absence, please notify the instructor in advance so that they can prepare effectively for you and the other students in attendance. A student missing class must contact a classmate to obtain any notes or assignments. Missing more than four classes will result in a penalty of one letter grade. Missing or Late Work In mass communications today, especially in journalism, deadlines are of utmost importance. If you continually miss your deadline, you will no longer have a job. With that in mind, your stories are due on deadline. If you are having a problem meeting your deadline, contact me early in the process; otherwise,

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there will be no exceptions for missing deadline. If you miss deadline, your grade will be automatically reduced one letter grade. Plagiarism Plagiarism is taken very seriously both in the real world and in this course. The first instance will warrant an F for the assignment, the second instance an F for the course. Both instances will be reported to the schools Integrity Review Board. Required Textbooks: Briggs, M. (2007) Journalism 2.0. Free Download Available at: http://www.kcnn.org/resources/journalism_20_pdfs/ Christian, D. Jacobsen, S, Minthorn, D. eds. (2011) Associated Press Stylebook. New York: Associated Press. Resources: http://www.rmusentrymedia.com/ http://www.bartleby.com/141/ http://www2.copydesk.org/hold/words/cliches.htm http://www.copydesk.org/ http://www.snd.org/ Spring Sentry Print Publication Dates: January 19, 2012 February 16, 2010 March 15, 2012 April 19, 2012 Staff Members for Spring 2012: News Editor-Andrea Zanaglio Sports Editor-Brooke Smith Chief Copy Editor-Alyssa Benson Opinion Editor-Sabine Cherenfant Online Editor-Alex Antonnaci Multimedia Editor-Tom Klabnik Photo Editor-Matt Polaski Features Editor-Sybile Cherenfant Ad Manager-Marissa Homer Art Director-Anthony Livecchi Assessment Because this is a writing class, students will be judged on their writing and knowledge of journalistic style and format, how they improve and progress as the semester passes. Each assignment will be graded on a point basis; the actual scale is listed below. A rubric for the group web package will be handed out in class. Attached to this syllabus is a rubric for Sentry and Storify articles. Sentry Story 1 Sentry Story 2 Sentry Story 3 Storify Stories In-Class Assignments Group Lateral Reporting Web Package 50 points 50 points 50 points 50 points 100 points 200 points

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Explanation of Assignments Published Work: You will be required to publish three articles either in the print or web edition of the Sentry newspaper. They may be published before the due date, but not after. You wont hand them in, the instructor will simply check the Sentrys website and the print edition. However, keep in mind the Sentry will not publish poor work. Therefore, if you would like the instructor to read over your article and offer comments or copyedit prior to submitting to the Sentry please email the copy more than 24 hours in advance of when youd like to submit it to the Sentry. Your published article will be graded with the attached rubric. Storify Stories: You will be required to write and publish five stories on Storify.com. Storify is an online site enabling reporters to write news articles easily utilizing social media in the form of tweets, status updates, photos, and video. Its a free service that only requires a login. Again, you wont hand these articles in, but rather provide a link to your Storify page that will be monitored by the instructor. Group Lateral Reporting Web Package: The class will be divided into two groups of four. Each group will be responsible for coming up with a story idea and covering in-depth multiple aspects of the story including digital media. A rubric for the assignment detailing specifics will be handed out in class. Each group will present their online web package hosted on the Sentrys site to the class. **Extra credit points awarded for articles or multimedia published at rmusentrymedia.com 1-3 articles/projects published up to 15 bonus points 4-6 articles/projects published up to 30 bonus points 7-10 articles/projects published up to 50 bonus points For the industrious journalist, these extra credit points add up to 10% of the total points available for the semester. This means if a student does poorly on one or two major assignments, bonus points can still save the overall grade. Keep in mind, the Sentry is also always looking for photos and advertisements. The grading scale is as follows: 475-500 450-474 440-449 425-439 400-424 385-399 350-384 335-325 300-324 299 and below 95% A 90% A87% B+ 85% B 80% B77% C+ 75% C 65% D 60% DFailing Grade

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TENTATIVE CLASS SCHEDULE: Bring at the minimum your AP Stylebook to all class sessions. Week 1: January 9, 2012 Review Syllabus January 11, 2012 What is News? What is Reporting? Read Chapter 2 of Journalism 2.0 Week 2: January 16, 2012 MLK Jr. Day NO CLASS January 18, 2012 Hyperlocal News Guest speaker from Patch.com Read Chapter 4 of Journalism 2.0 Week 3: January 23, 2012 Knowing Your Audience Storytelling the News What is Storify? January 25, 2012 In-class Assignment 1 Read Chapter 5 of Journalism 2.0 Week 4: January 30, 2012 Visual Storytelling News as Conversation Read Chapter 6 of Journalism 2.0 February 1, 2012 In-class Assignment 2 Storify Story 1 due Week 5: February 6, 2012 Adding Audio Read Chapter 7 of Journalism 2.0 February 8, 2012 In-class Assignment 3 Story 1 for the Sentry due Read Chapter 9 of Journalism 2.0 Week 6: February 13, 2012

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Adding Video February 15, 2012 In-class Assignment 3 Storify Story 2 due Week 7: February 20, 2012 Typography & Graphics February 22, 2012 In-class Assignment 4 Week 8: February 27, 2012 Interviewing & Sources Read Chapter 8 of Journalism 2.0 February 29, 2012 In-class Assignment 5 Story 2 for the Sentry due Week 9:SPRING BREAK NO CLASS Week 10: March 12, 2012 Photojournalism March 14, 2012 In-class Assignment 6 Read Chapter 9 of Journalism 2.0 Week 11: March 19, 2012 Lateral Reporting Storify Story 3 due March 21, 2012 In-class Assignment 7 Week 12: March 26, 2012 Citizen Journalism March 28, 2012 In-class Assignment 8 Week 13: April 2, 2012 Social Media and News Storify Story 4 due April 4, 2012

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In-class Assignment 9 Week 14: April 9, 2012 Blogging & Microblogging April 11, 2012 In-class Assignment 10 Story 3 for the Sentry due Week 15: April 16, 2012 Group 1 Web Package Presentation April 18, 2012 Group 2 Web Package Presentation Finals Week: April 23-27 Storify Story 5 due Final Grades Due: April 30, 2012