Grading
Undergrads taking all six credits in the news bureau will be judged
on their ability to handle different types of assignments, including: researching and writing interactive news quizzes; reporting and writing a variety of
multimedia stories, including some with video; writing breaking news pieces and an audio/photo slide show (see below);
writing headlines, captions and smart Web links; coding and packaging Web
content; selecting, sizing and cropping digital photos for story pages and
special reports; collecting and posting audio on the Web and digitizing and
posting video on the Web.
You'll be assessed on your ability to follow
Associated Press style, to follow rules of good grammar and to write
accurately and fairly.
Your grade will also reflect your demonstrated news
judgment--since you'll be asked to help pick stories for display on the
site.
And you will be judged on your creativity in suggesting interactive
projects and special reports or other features for the site.
It is essential that you meet deadlines and complete assignments.
In addition to the points noted above, your final grade will reflect on your work habits, time management, attendance,
punctuality, attitude
and demonstrated improvement.
In the bureau, you will get routine, informal feedback on your progress on
particular assignments. You'll also get a brief, written mid-term evaluation,
in which
we will discuss your strengths and weaknesses and you will be given advice on how to improve your work. We will have one-on-one discussions about your progress
throughout the semester and you will be given a midterm grade and a final grade.
Here's how your grade will be assessed, for each of the three-credit classes making up the news bureau:
JOUR 355: Online News Bureau (editing/research/production). This chiefly focuses on copy editing--including
headline, caption and link writing-- research for interactive quizzes and other features, photo selection and cropping, story packaging
and production, and audio and video editing.
Here are the minimum assignments that all
undergraduate students will
be expected to complete to earn a passing grade:
- Each week, you will be given responsibility for updating one or two section fronts. This means you will have a say in what
stories are selected for packaging, how they'll be displayed, and what photos,
graphics and headlines will be used to accompany text. You will be selecting and
sizing the images and writing captions for them. You should always talk to
me before changing out a section front or home page. Working from Maryland Newsline templates,
you will write the basic code
to place new features on the page.
- You will be asked to pull together archival and current stories,
links, photos and video or interactive features and then build at least one major new package for the
special reports area. You may be assigned to work on this with a team. Packages from previous semesters include: "Elections '08"; "2007 Special Session: Budget Crisis"; "2007 Maryland Inauguration"; "2007 National Cherry Blossom Festival"; "Homeless in Maryland"; "Maryland Votes 2006";
"National Champs";
"Teens and Technology";
"Final Auction";
"Schools in Crisis";
"Katrina's Aftermath"; "Casualties of War"; "Inauguration 2005";
"Uncovered: Maryland's Health Insurance Crisis"; "Maryland Votes 2004";
"Brown vs. Board of Education 50 Years Later";
"Saving the Chesapeake Bay";
"AIDS: Dealing With an Epidemic", "In War's Shadow"; "Census 2000"; "Political Ethics in Maryland"; "Reach the Beach"; "Farewell to Cole"; "State Symbols"; "The Death Penalty"; and
"The Tobacco Industry." Special reports will only be produced on ongoing stories with staying power. Please clear this assignment with me before beginning on it.
- You must research and write at least two interactive news quizzes or Google map mashups for existing
or new Special Reports on the site.
Topics should be cleared with me. For strong examples, see Raechal Leone's "They Said What?," Rachel Mauro's "Invisibility in Books and Films"; Lisa Tossey's "Physical
Traits of Presidents," Daina Klimanis' "The Future of Hubble"
and her "Bartlett vs. Rolle, on the Issues," Nicole Albowicz's
"History of Slots in America," Nicole Richardson's "How Well Do You Know Cole?" and Nikki Hawkins' Maryland symbols quiz.
Also see this map mashup of homeless services in Baltimore.
In addition, you also will be posting video every week from our TV news
bureau. You will be asked to update/add to existing Special Reports on the
site, to demonstrate to the class any new tools you teach yourself to use during
the semester and to use your creativity to pitch ideas for
new features and pages for the site.
JOUR 353: (advanced multimedia reporting):
Here are the minimum assignments that all
undergraduate students will
be expected to complete to earn a passing grade:
You must research and write at least one interactive news quiz for existing
or new Special Reports on the site.
Topics should be cleared with me. For strong examples, see Raechal Leone's "They Said What?," Rachel Mauro's "Invisibility in Books and Films"; Lisa Tossey's "Physical
Traits of Presidents"; Daina Klimanis' "The Future of Hubble"
and her "Bartlett vs. Rolle, on the Issues"; Nicole Albowicz's
"History of Slots in America"; Nicole Richardson's "How Well Do You Know Cole?" and Nikki Hawkins' Maryland symbols quiz.
You must produce one audio-photo slide show or gallery, produced in Soundslides (flash software) or an html template, on a newsy event or a feature topic. Please clear a topic with me before setting out on it. Your pictures, audio and captions should tell a story. For inspiration, check out Raechal Leone's "Fans Find Favorite Authors at Book Fest," Carrie Dindino's "UMD Students Help Transform a West Baltimore Neighborhood," Melissa Pachikara's essay on retiring AP reporter Tom Stuckey; Jennifer Fu's "Testudo's Troops," April Chan's "Living at the D.C. Armory" and Nikki Hawkins' "Pit Bulls in Maryland. Earlier projects - before audio was required for this assignment - included Sonia Kumar's "Panda Provisions," Kim Harris' "Sea Art in Charm City" and Amy Silva's "The End of an Era: Maryland Tobacco Auction in Photos."
You must report and write at least one light, bright feature story with audio, of 400 to 700 words. (The narrative for this will be driven more by the text, whereas the narrative for the photo essay is driven more by the photos and audio.) You must include at least two relevant Web links for the piece. You
must also include at least one photo -- either one you took or
one you got permission from the copyright holder to re-use -- and one audio clip from your interviews. (A short video clip could be used in lieu of the audio.) You must also write a proposed headline and caption. For strong examples, see Carrie Dindino's "Everything Must Go at the Watergate Hotel," Kelly Martini's "Ellicott City Hosts 'Haunted' History Walks"; A.J. McComb's "Ghostly Tales
Offered on University Tours," Melissa Pachikara's "UMD's Turtle
Sculptures Go on
Auction" and Danny Conklin's "From Torts to Tarts."
You will be required to report and Web-produce at least one video-driven news or newsfeature story, using our hand-held video cams and the free software MovieMaker for editing. This can be done individually or as part of a team. For examples, see Raechel Leone's report from Annapolis on regular folks reacting to the proposed sales tax increase in Maryland, Arelis Hernandez and David Byers' report on how much that proposed sales tax hike could affect prices on big-ticket purchases; Carrie Dindino's report on a long-shot presidential candidate from Maryland; and Arelis Hernandez and David Byers' reaction story from the UMD campus on race relations following the discovery of a noose hanging near a minority student cultural center.
You must report and write at least one breaking story on a daily deadline, of 400 to 700 words. You must include at least two relevant Web links for each story. You must
also write a proposed headline.
Photos and audio are optional. For examples, see Arelis Hernandez and David Byers' "Dry Spell Ends With Gentle Rainfall, More Possible"; the Newsline staff's "Parade Spectators Claim
Their Own Pieces of Inaugural History"; Stephen Mather's "Hundreds Remember Muppets Creator With
Statue Dedication at UMD"; and Daina Klimanis' "Circus Fun Erupts
When Seuss Is Honored With Reading, Stamp."
You must report and write at least one profile of
up to 1,000 words of a soldier killed in Iraq or Afghanistan or an interesting or quirky person, businessman or
inventor, public official or candidate for office. Multiple sources must be interviewed during the reporting phase; information must come from paper and people sources; LexisNexis should be used for backgrounding; and,
preferably, some government records will be searched. Sidebar stories and boxes can be
used to accompany the story, to fit in vital info that exceeds the 1,000 words in
the main piece. The profile must include digital photos taken by you or
archival photos retrieved and cropped by you and at least one audio
or video clip collected by you and edited for the Web, which we will link from the story page. You
must include subheads in the body of the text, to aid in readability. Please
clear this assignment with me before beginning on it. For examples of
other students' work, see Raechal Leone's "Maryland Author Turns to Family for Inspiration," April Chan's profile of a New Orleans family
displaced by Hurricane Katrina; and Mike Santa Rita's profile of a Maryland soldier
killed in Iraq. For samples of earlier profiles, before the audio or video complements were required, see Kim Harris' profile of a survivor of the World Trade Center attack, and
Fanen Chiahemen's profile of an AIDS sufferer.
You must do all the Web
production work for each of your assignments (putting photos, text and
audio into the appropriate templates), and you may be asked to do some other occasional site updating.
Copyright ©
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, Chris Harvey. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
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