10/8 - Ethics Night, by Roxy Adechoubou

·      Part 1 of the class:

Ø  We did the exam: current events/grammar/Lead

Ø  We discussed what is important to put in a lead and what’s not. The lead should “always” contain the 5W’s.

·       Part 2:

Ø  We did a Skype session with Sarah Baker:

-       Baker is the writing tutor assign to our class.

-       She has a degree in Communication, and a specialization in Journalism. Her minor is International Studies.

-       She was also a writing consultant

-       Her office hours are Monday from 1pm to 3pm in T19.

-       Let her know before you come to see her. Most importantly, do not come empty handed.

Part 3:

Ø  We talked about the Codes of Ethics:

- We learned that there is no such thing as losing a license in journalism. A journalist is not a lawyer or a doctor, as he/she cannot lose his/her license.  However losing credibility is totally possible because credibility is critical in Journalism.  

Part 4:

We did an interesting activity where we were given different scenarios. Professor Piacente broke the class into six groups, and each group got a tough ethics case.

Assignment

1-    Discuss the case away from the rest of the class

2-    Groups write three persuasive bullet points to back up their decisions on whether / how to do a story.

3-    When turn comes, spokesman 1 explains the case to class.

4-    Spokesman 2 reads lead or summary to class

5-    Group takes questions from class & prof

Example: Case 1:

 This case was one of many that made us think on how we should handle a story. Every person in the class had different opinions, but we all agreed that the first case should be in the news. The mother should quit her job of County Child Protection, and the father should face criminal charges. However, we all had different opinions on whether or not the name of the daughter should be in the news. In fact, some of us were concerned about some possible repercussion on her life. Thus, we decided that it would be preferable to do the story without putting the daughter’s name in the news.

Ø  Theses cases are some examples of the decisions that a reporter makes every day on different stories.

What do to for next class:

-Write the Joy baker’s news story and submit to the professor by 5.PM Friday, October 9^th.

-Pick a story in The Post and the same story in TheSkimm. In one page use 3 to 5 bullets with specific examples explaining the differences in the substances, styles and tones.

- We have been given a paper with 10 sentences with AP styles mistakes. Our job is to correct them.

- Read chapter 15 in the book; think about the differences between the job of a reporter and someone who’s in PR.