THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

OPEN CAMPUS BELIZE

ADVANCE COURSE IN EFFECTIVE MAIN STREAM MEDIA

REPORTING

Course Description
The objective of this course is to provide the participants with the effective/modern main stream
media reporting skills, be it on radio/tv, Social Media and various application on the internet.

Course Participants - Who Should Attend

 Persons working with any Media Center in Belize, be it radio or tv, Newspaper, youtube,
tweeter, Instagram, etc.

Course Objectives
At the end of the 3 months course; Four credits hours per week; 48 total credits to graduate from
the course.
1) To understand the fundamental principles of standards media reporting writing for News
Cast, on radio and tv, Facebook screening, Youtube replays.
2) Review and clarify simple grammatical rules that are needed for effective media writing
3) Identify the major types of written communication that a need to be mastered in the
Reporting World
4) Understand what are the barriers to good media report writing
5) Improve Reporters ability to write different types of News cast
6) Understand the importance of the audience to whom the communication is addressed
7) Understand and be able to identify news trends, be it in politics, education, crime,
economy, family, environments, agriculture, religion, sports, etc.

Certification
Participants who fulfill at least 75% of the attendance requirement of the whole course and pass
the end-of course assessment (if applicable) will be awarded an Advance Certificate for
Completion.

Participants who met the minimum attendance but do not pass the assessment will be awarded a
Certificate of Participation.

Course Prerequisites
Participants must be active, working with a Tv or radio station, newspaper or organization where
reporting is done regularly.
For this course to take place 15 participants need to register at UWI open campus, Belize city.

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Course Duration
16 contact hours monthly for 3 months.

Method of Delivery
50% of the course will be done online and 50% will be investigating reporting, field work- 6 case
studies.
Any combination of lectures, discussions, research presentation, role plays, problem solving
exercises, case studies as well and video presentations. The emphasis is on learning by doing.
Special features include: Interactive "workshop" format, group learning - you also get to know what
other reporters, journalists are doing, individual and group activities.

Course Cancellation Policy

The UWI Open Campus Belize makes every effort to maintain the advertised schedule of classes;
however, low or insufficient enrollment may require a schedule adjustment or course cancellation.
All registrants will be duly notified of any changes in the published information.

Method of Assessment
There will be two case studies assessment;

In Class Assessment; Participants will be given a piece of News Report Writing to re-write in order
to show the basic principles in business communication. This will be worth 30 marks

Second Assessment: Participants will be asked to present 3 different pieces of News Cast Reports
preferably relevant to the daily/weekly social events in Belize. This will be worth 60 marks.

Participants will also be awarded at maximum of 10 points for participation in class.

Students who achieve over 70% in the course will be awarded a Certificate of Achievement by the
UWI School of Continuing Studies.

Course Outline
A. Barriers to communication
(i) Personal writing survey
(ii) Basic English/ Spanish Review
(iii) Punctuation – why is it useful?

B. Writing Clearly
(i) Targeting your audience/reader, or the Politics of Business Writing
(ii) Outline what you want to say
(iii) Sticking to your purpose

C. Writing texts, scripts, memos

(i) Guidelines for writing effective news cast programs
(ii) Do’s and don’ts for reading News Reports
(iii) Voice Intonation when reading and News Report

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D. Final Presentation

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