News Writing

The purpose of this course is to give students the skills for, and practice in, reporting and writing news articles and features. The practical experience of researching and writing about real-life news events will be set in the larger context of the nature, structure and function of media. Students will build on the theory taught in the “Introduction to Writing for the Media” course and execute a number of timely news feature articles on subjects of their choosing. Each news and feature story should be suitable for publication (incorporating multimedia aspects). Students will receive hands-on advice and mentoring at each stage of story development – from generating ideas to researching, reporting, and writing/structuring their articles. Students will also be expected to pitch and produce their own stories on a weekly basis. The class will include covering news in real time and rewriting stories during the editing process. Assignments in syllabus may change due to timing of news event. The editing and rewriting sessions will reinforce the basic style and structure elements of news writing. By the end of the course students should be able to edit each other’s work. Students’ articles will be assessed based on how well they satisfy basic news elements (such as timeliness, impact/consequence, oddity/rarity, human interest, conflict, prominence) and the target audience (local or global). Students, either in small groups or one-on-one, will get regular feedback on how to organize stories; select sources; question deeply; work toward balance/avoid bias (and clichés); fact-check; rework and rewrite; strive for clarity; and create prose that flows.