Readings, Dress Code, Telephones, Etc.
Required Reading: All online bureau
students should be well-versed on issues in Annapolis and Washington -- and on the
legislative process. This means reading the home pages and local section fronts of
the Washington Post or Washington Times each day,
along with Baltimore's Sun. You should also be up on technology issues--for
obvious reasons. So start reading the business section of the newspaper.
You should pick up a guide to the Web-editing tool Microsoft FrontPage or
Macromedia Dreamweaver for use throughout the semester.
The lab's computers are loaded with both tools.
Because
the field is changing so fast, I also recommend that you periodically read
a few sites about the business of online journalism: Vincent Flanders' Web Pages That Suck
(learn good Web design by looking at bad design!) is both amusing and useful; Online Journalism Review,
American Journalism Review, Columbia Journalism Review and Editor & Publisher all carry columns and stories about new media.
Dress: Dress as you would for a paying job as a
reporter in an online newsroom. No shorts, jeans, T-shirts or tennis shoes, please. Dress pants and shirts and blazers or nice sweaters are recommended, in case you are called on to go out for an interview. Skirts or dresses are also
great, but not necessary unless you are trying to get into a legislative or
congressional hearing room or floor session. Exceptions to the code can be made with prior
permission of your instructor. (For instance, if you're going out to interview homeless
people, I'll likely ask you to dress casually.)
Telephones:
We have no office secretary or receptionist, so please share in
answering incoming calls and in taking messages. Be sure when
taking a message to get the caller's name, phone number, message, day and time
of call. When answering all phone calls, please say your full name and "Maryland Newsline." It makes you sound professional.
Be sure to periodically check for voice mail messages, by dialing 301-405-5100.
You'll also have to type in the last five digits of our student-reporter phone line (42694) and
our five-digit password (I'll give it to you the first day) to retrieve calls on the office phones.
Note that personal long-distance
calls cannot be made on our lines. We get monthly printouts of calls and
enforce this rule.
Our main newsroom number is: 301-314-2694.
My number in the bureau is
301-314-2696.
Our fax number is: 301-314-2566.
The Washington bureau number is: 202-628-1677. Its director is
Adrianne Flynn.
The Annapolis bureau number is: 301-858-5431. The director is
Tony Barbieri.
The broadcast bureau director is Cassandra Clayton. She is reachable at 301-405-0491.
The show's executive producer, Sue Kopen Katcef, is reachable at Tawes at
301-405-7526.
Who We Are: If someone asks who we are, you
can tell them something along these lines: Maryland Newsline is a student-staffed online newsmagazine
run by the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism and edited by a
teacher with many years of experience as a professional journalist. We
cover state and federal politics, school and health issues, business and technology, and courts and criminal justice. We package content from Capital News
Service--our print and TV sister bureaus in Annapolis, Washington and College
Park--and also produce our own
work, focusing on Maryland issues.
Print stories from CNS are fed to subscriber papers in Maryland, Pennsylvania and the
District of Columbia--including Baltimore's Sun, The Washington Post and The
Washington Times. Television stories for Maryland Newsline can be seen on UMTV, which
also airs
on Prince
George’s and Montgomery County cable.
A Final Note: Any students with disabilities
requiring special accommodations should talk to me privately at the start of the semester.
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Last updated:
08/23/06 02:08 PM
Copyright ©
2 003, 2004,
2005 and 2006 Chris Harvey,
for The University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
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