Journalism I - Basics

The purpose of this book is to enable students to develop fundamental skills in the production of journalism across print, multimedia, web, and broadcast/radio platforms and to become aware of journalism history, careers, ethics use, and management techniques related to the production of journalistic media.  Students will learn the foundations of journalism and the craft's two main components - reporting and writing of the news -- and will explore how news is delivered through mobile devices, TV, radio, Web and printed publications.

Fundamentals of Journalism – accuracy, newsworthiness, balance, fairness and the importance of deadlines.
Basic News Writing Skills - emphasizing spelling, grammar, use of quotes and attribution, single-sentence paragraphs, the inverted pyramid structure and crisp and compelling news leads.
Basic Reporting Techniques – emphasizing good interviewing skills and the use of social media, commercial databases and the Internet to background stories and to find news.
Basic reporting and writing of stories for print, Web, broadcast and mobile devices. Stories will include accidents, weather, speeches, meetings, crime, and school events, among others. Assignment length will vary from 140-character tweets to 500-word news articles.