Welcome
Welcome to the distance learning
version of Journalism 101-- Beginning Newswriting.
The purpose of this class is to improve your writing skills by introducing
you to a newswriting form of writing. This semester we will focus on
an inverted pyramid form of writing. This form emphasizes getting to
point of the story quickly and presenting your information in a concise,
logical fashion. It is a form of writing that will serve you in all
kinds of daily written communication.
Whether you plan a career in journalism/communications or not, most
jobs today require the ability to communicate information to others.
And after all, a reporter's
job is to gather information from a variety of sources, synthesize or
understand that information, and prepare it for dissemination to others.
That dissemination may be in a newspaper article or a memo. But the
reporter's job is the same regardless of the medium:
- gather information
from a variety of sources,
- make sense of
the information, and
- communicate
the results to others.
To learn this style,
we'll do lots of writing in this class, though much of it will be short
stuff designed to help you learn the nuances of written communication.
A distance learning option for the newswriting course offers some advantages
and some disadvantages.
Among the advantages are that you don't have to attend class at the
same time all the time. You can work around your schedule. For some
of you, this may mean that you don't have to ever come to campus. You
can work from the comfort of your home or business.
But a distance learning course requires more discipline on both your
part and my part.
This course will be similar to my traditional day class in the number
and types of assignments we will cover. And we cover A LOT of assignments.
Lectures will be delivered online and you'll e-mail most assignments
to me. A few of the assignments will have to be physically mailed (or
faxed) to me, but we'll keep those to a minimum.
Just because you are not sitting in a classroom, does not mean the class
is easier. For most of us the lack of an imposed daily work structure
actually makes a course like this MORE DIFFICULT. You have got to have
a lot of discipline to complete your assignments on a daily basis.
The distance education class
requires that you:
- Be
highly self motivated.
- Be
comfortable using computers
If you are not
both of these, this class may not be for you. Be honest with both yourself
and me right now? Are you committed to working on this class daily or
at least four times a week without being prodded. If not, don't set
youself up for failure. Drop now. This class is not particularly difficult
if you have the self-discipline.
This is NOT a self-paced
class. It is a regular class that happens to be delivered online. You
will need to work on assignments at least a couple of times a week.
For my part, I've got to give you more individualized attention than
I might in a traditional classroom setting and I've got give you the
feedback you need.
Most instructors are unwilling or unable to do this. It has taken me
five years of work to prepare myself to offer this class via distance
learning. By offering this course via distance education, I've made
the commitment to work with you to make sure you succeed if you'll just
do your part.
TEXTBOOKS
You can look at the course syllabus on the course web page www.rcameron.com/journalism/101
to get information about how this course operates. I'll put more in
future lectures. But for now, let's talk about textbooks.
There are three textbooks for this class. You'll need all three. The
main book we'll be using is "Practice Exercises in Newswriting,"
by George Hough. Most the assignments for the class will come from it.
It is available in the Cerritos College bookstore.
If you are from out of this area or would like to shop online, the workbook
may be available from several of the online sources. Check the list
of online bookstores listed on the distributed education web site.
The reader text is by the same author and is simply called "Newswriting,"
also by George Hough. You'll have a number of assignments from it as
well.
And the third is a reference book called "The Associated Press
Stylebook and Libel Manual." This is a great reference book
and you'll need to learn the style. So getting it is important, too.
In fact, this is one book you should have on your reference desk even
if you decide to drop this course.
WARNING:
Some students sign up for this class, but wait to buy textbooks because
they don't have the money now. They often fail to make it through this
class. I used to be a starving student, so I understand. But buy the
workbook right away!!!! The others can wait a week or two, but if you
cannot not buy the workbook the first week DROP THE CLASS now!
TIMELINE
The general timeline of what we will be doing is below. We'll actually
be working on some of these things ALL semester, but these guidelines
indicate when we'll spend specific time on them. A more specific list
of assignments is located at www.rcameron.com/journalism/101/timeline.html.
This list is subject to change, so check it often.
- Week 01 -- Intro
to Copy Editing
- Week 02 -- Intro
to AP Style
- Week 03 -- What
is News?/Inverted Pyramid
- Week 04 -- Intro
to Leads
- Week 05 -- Blind
Leads/Delayed ID Leads
- Week 06 -- Localizing
the story
- Week 07 -- Covering
upcoming events/S.T.O.P. leads
- Week 08 -- Interviewing/News
gathering
- Week 09 -- Quotes
and Attribution
- Week 10 -- Legal
Aspects
- Week 11 -- Multi-element
leads
- Week 12 -- Obituaries
- Week 13 -- Meetings
- Week 14 -- City
Council Assignment
- Week 15 -- City
Council Assignment
ASSIGNMENT ONE: Get the texts NOW and check in with me via e-mail.
Also, answer and e-mail to me the following questions.
- What is the reporter's job?
- What are the
advantages and disadvantages of taking this course through the distance
education option?
- What two characteristics
should you possess to succeed in this class?
- What are the
textbooks for this class?
- When are your
purchasing the textbooks/workbook?
rCameron@cerritos.edu
