Class Notes 1/28/2019

By Henri Brink

Action Items

·      Grammar Quiz next week

·      Current Events Quiz next week

·      Class Blog is due at 5pm every Tuesday

Big Lessons

·      Get to the point right away- big takeaway for the class

o   Five Ws and the “leads” and attribution

o   Always answer two questions from the reader’s point of view:

§  1 – Why does it matter?

§  2 – Why should I care?

·      At no point in this semester should you include personal feelings in your stories, or any words or phrases that suggest how you feel

o   Our purpose is to report fairly and in an unbiased fashion the facts of a situation

o   The prof should not be able to tell how you feel about a subject based on what you write

·      Being objective is impossible; every decision is subjective

o   Our goal, then, is to be fair

·      Anything assigned in class supersedes what is assigned on the syllabus

·      Leads will be 25 words or less and contain as many of the 5 Ws as possible

o   Put the most important information first by prioritizing the 5 Ws

·      You cannot put yourself in the story

o   Full attribution on the first citation. After that, you don’t need to reference the exact source every time, unless it is a new

·      Top 10 mistakes sheet

o   Handed out in class, very important document to reference and understand

Washington Post

·      We need to read the section fronts of the A section of the Post

o   Also read the section fronts for metro, style and sports

o   Study tip: Make a list of the major headlines as you read the paper

Writing the News

·      Be concise: Go for the three words

o   The easiest, simplest way to get information to the reader

·      No headlines for our stories throughout the semester (until we get to PR)

·      Attribution

o   Information from an official source

o   ALL stories require attribution

·      “Luckily”

o   Opinion word

o   Do not use opinion words

·      AP Style

o   All stories need to be written in AP style

o   Five-minute stylebook gives you a crash course

Quizstar

·      Starts at approx. 5:35

o   Make sure to get to class on time in order to take the quiz with the rest of the class

Homework Assignments

·      Read ch. 5-7 in Writing for Mass Media

·      Do pg. 11 assignments 1.13 and 1.14 1-5

·      Do pg. 63 assignment 4.1

·      Write top three takeaways for each chapter

·      Read three articles by Michele Davis and prepare two questions about the reading

·      Review assignments from last week