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J400 Reporting 1

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Course Information

Instructor: Dean Ronald E. Yates
Office: 119 Gregory Hall
Telephone: 333-2350
E-mail: ryates@uiuc.edu
Office hours: By appointment


Class time: Tuesday, 9-9:50 a.m.
Location: 160 English Buildnig
Required text: "The Journalist's Handbook," Yates, et al.
(Available at Notes and Quotes, 502 E. John St., C., 344-4433, for $17.95.)
Recommended text: "The Elements of Style," Strunk
Prerequisites:


Course Description
While the title of this course is "J-400 Lecture," that is only partially correct. There will, indeed, be some lecturing, but the intent of the hour we spend together each week will be to engage you in discourse about journalism. That means we will examine journalistic practice, i.e., reporting, organizing and writing; ethics; history; responsibility; and the considerable changes sweeping today's newsrooms.
 

It means you should come to class prepared to do more than listen. You should come prepared to discuss issues in journalism.

 

What issues? Consider the following statement issued recently by the Committee of Concerned Journalists:

"This is a critical moment for journalism in America. While the craft in many respects has never been better — consider the supply of information or the skill of reporters — there is a paradox to our communications age. Revolutionary changes in technology, in our economic structure and in our relationship with the public, are pulling journalism from its traditional moorings.


As audiences fragment and our companies diversify, there is a growing debate within news organizations about our responsibilities as businesses and our responsibilities as journalists. Many journalists feel a sense of lost purpose. There is even doubt about the meaning of news, doubt evident when serious journalistic organizations drift toward opinion, infotainment and sensation out of balance with news.


Journalists share responsibility for the uncertainty. Our values and professional standards are often vaguely expressed and inconsistently honored. We have been slow to change habits in the presentation of news that may have lost their relevance. Change is necessary.


Yet as we change we assert some core principles of journalism are enduring. They are those that make journalism a public service central to self-government. They define our profession not as the act of communicating but as a set of responsibilities. Journalism can entertain, amuse and lift our spirits, but news organizations also must cover the matters vital to the well being of our increasingly diverse communities and foster the debate upon which democracy depends. The First Amendment implies obligation as well as freedom.


For much of our history, we believed we could let our work enunciate these principles and our owners and managers articulate these responsibilities. Today, too often, the principles in our work are hard to discern or lost in the din, and our leaders feel constrained."


Journalism, as many have known and practiced it for decades, is undergoing enormous change today. New technologies, the internet, the corporate bottom line, changing demographics and habits of readers, viewers and listeners are all conspiring (unwittingly perhaps) to transfigure the journalistic landscape that many of you will enter upon graduation. For those who toiled in this world for decades (such as yours truly), this new landscape is at the same time troubling and exciting.


Newsrooms today are, in many ways, a strange and barely recognizable world for many. Technology has changed the way reporters and editors do their jobs. Journalism's relationship with the public is also shifting as new definitions of what news is are adopted and an aggressive bottom-line orientation driven by Wall Street forces cutbacks. Some believe these changes threaten the core principles that define journalism's role in a democratic society. Many journalists have begun to doubt themselves and the meaning of their profession as they are faced with splintering audiences, information overload and news media companies diversifying, merging and confronting unimaginable complexity.


New media delivery platforms (the Internet, the blogosphere, podcasting, etc.) are changing the journalistic landscape in ways scarcely imaginable even five years ago. No longer will readers, viewers and listeners be content to be passive receptors of news. Today's (and tomorrow's) news consumers want to be engaged in the process, to have some control over the content that is delivered and even to interact with the "messengers."


While your lab sessions are introductory news writing exercises designed to help you write clearly, quickly, concisely and accurately, the one-hour lectures are intended to help you to think critically about journalism and its role in society.


To secure journalism's future, some journalists from all media, geography, rank and generations believe that they must be clear about what sets their profession apart from other endeavors. Many believe that the time is right for a national conversation among journalists about the principles of journalism. For many of you, that conversation will begin with this J-400 lecture.


For those of you planning to pursue a professional career in the news media, this will be one of the most important courses you will take. The lab sessions will give you a firm foundation in the demanding skills of reporting, interviewing, organizing and writing hard news and news feature stories in both the print and broadcast worlds. Just as important, it will help you develop the kind of self-confidence and self-discipline essential for success as a journalist.


At the same time, the lecture session is designed to provide a framework for the reporting and news writing assignments you receive in your labs. The lectures will not necessarily parallel the instruction you receive in your labs. However, they will augment it and provide context.


There is nothing magical about journalism. It is work. Reporting and writing requires effort, good reporting and writing requires exceptional effort and extraordinary reporting and writing requires nothing short of absolute dedication, buckets of cerebral perspiration and all the tools of the journalist's craft.


J-400 lays the foundation for everything else you will learn in the Department of Journalism. In order to move on up to our advanced classes your experience in J-400 lecture and lab will help you:

 
*Broadcast sections only


Midterm and Final Exams
You do not become a journalist by regurgitating lists of memorized facts, figures or formulas. Journalism is learned through practice. The exams you take in J-400 are simply a way for your instructors to gauge your grasp of critical concepts and practices important for journalists to master.

Your lab instructors will examine your progress via a midterm assessment. This may take the form of an exam, but it may also be an in-class exercise in news writing or some other method of determining your development as a reporter/writer. There will be a final exam. It will consist of questions taken from the lecture sessions, as well as an exercise devised by your lab instructor to test your ability to recognize news, organize it and write it in a compelling manner.


Attendance — IMPORTANT!

Before each lecture period a sign-in sheet will be on the table in 223 Gregory Hall. When you enter the room, you should initial the space next to your name. I will provide your lab instructors copies of these sign-up sheets after each lecture. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO INITIAL THE SIGN-IN SHEET BEFORE EACH CLASS PERIOD. FORGETTING IS NOT AN OPTION, NOR IS IT AN ACCEPTABLE EXCUSE!


Missing lectures WILL have a significant impact on your final grade. You be will be allowed three (3) absences during the semester. For each absence AFTER the first three, your grade will be dropped one level. For example, if you have an A and you have three (3) absences, your grade will be reduced to a B — no matter how well you do on your writing assignments, midterm and final exam. Miss four (4) lectures and your grade becomes a C; miss five (5) and it's a D, and so on. If your absences have been excused or if you have a medical reason or emergency which keeps you from coming to class, you MUST let me know in advance or by the first class AFTER your absence. Otherwise I will assume the absence is unexcused and record it accordingly.


Any authorized absence must be cleared with me first — unless it is an emergency and you can provide verification of that after the fact. If you need to be late or absent, get permission IN ADVANCE. I will give permission only for reasons that would be acceptable to an editor or producer in the professional world: serious illness or a death in the family. Otherwise I expect you to be here. Exams that are not taken because of an unexcused absence will result in a grade of zero.


The Buddy System

On occasion, personal or medical problems may cause you to miss all or part of a lecture session. When this happens, it will be your responsibility to get lecture notes and other pertinent information from someone else. The sheer size of this class, plus the fact that I don’t follow a set structure in my lectures, prohibits me from reiterating information I give during regular lecture periods.


Consultation and Office Hours

Because my schedule as dean of the College of Media is unpredictable, I cannot keep regular office hours. You will have to call the College office and make an appointment if you need to see me regarding any problems or questions pertaining to the lecture. Questions about your lab work should be directed to your lab instructor.


I am also willing to meet with you to discuss questions you may have regarding a professional career in journalism, the news business in general or your academic careers. From time to time, I will set aside lab time for informal discussions on these topics in lecture.


Grading Procedure

Your final grade will be determined by the reporting and writing you do in the labs. However, the midterm project and the final exam, which are based on both the lecture and lab sessions, will count for 25 percent of your grade — 10 percent for the midterm project and 15 percent for the final. If you fail the final, the highest grade you can receive in J-400, no matter how you are doing in your lab section, will be a "C."


Academic Integrity

Cheating and other forms of academic dishonesty, such as plagiarism and wrongfully acquiring and providing information, will not be tolerated and will result in a failing grade for the course, at the minimum, and could lead to expulsion from the University. I will expect the highest ethical and professional behavior from you. If you are not familiar with the Academic Integrity Policy at the University of Illinois, you should consult the Code on Campus Affairs, available online as a PDF at: www.admin.uiuc.edu/policy/code/.


A Few Final Words

You will be expected to conform to the same professional standards observed in a well-run newsroom. When you enter 223 Gregory Hall or your lab, I want you to think of both as a newsroom. Think of your lab instructor and me as your metro editor and managing editor or as your assignment editor and station manager. You should treat J-400 lecture and lab the way you would a job. If you need to be late or absent, get permission IN ADVANCE. I will give permission only for reasons that would be acceptable to an editor or producer in the professional world: serious illness or a death in the family. Otherwise I expect you to be here. Exams that are not taken because of an unexcused absence will result in a grade of zero.


Because we will be talking about events in the news and how the media are covering them I STRONGLY recommend that you read a local newspaper such as The Daily Illini and/or The (Champaign, Ill.) News-Gazette, a regional paper such as the Chicago Tribune or the St. Louis Post-Dispatch AND view a news broadcast every day. You don't have to buy a newspaper. You can find them in the College Communications Library.


When you have questions (and you will), ask them. The only "dumb" question is the one not asked! You cannot be terminally timid and expect to succeed as a journalist. You may feel shy — many nascent journalists do — but you must ask questions anyway. You must learn to be assertive and confident reporters.


Remember: Doing good journalism is hard work. Doing great journalism, however, requires nothing less than unconditional dedication. There are no shortcuts to success in this business; nor can you fake talent and ability.


When I was a new reporter at the Chicago Tribune, I once asked an old editor what he thought it took to get to the top of the business. I have never forgotten his reply:

"There is no such thing as getting to the top," he said. "In this business you are only as good as your last story."

He was right.



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