The Scoop
The development of newswriting
Development of newswriting from Jim Stovall on Vimeo.
Dr. Ed Caudill of the University of Tennessee gives a short preview of his talk on the development of our current newswriting style (scheduled for Aug. 31, 2010, lecture of JEM 230). Caudill uses the news coverage of the wars in which America has fought as examples of the changing style of newswriting that journalists have used. Audience and technology, he says, have been the driving forces in the development of these styles of writing. An extended version of this preview can be found on Vimeo.
JEM students (and others): Here are the lecture notes.
Recently posted: Seven steps to the audio slideshow
Students in JEM 230 (University of Tennessee) have to put together an audio as their first assignment for the fall semester. Here are the seven steps they need to complete to handle this assignment successfully.
And here are some additional resources:
- Audio slideshows (a short article)
- Practice assignment for audio slideshows (complete with pictures and information for a script.
Course websites
Websites for University of Tennessee courses JEM 230 Media reporting and JEM 200 Introduction to newswriting can now be found on JPROF.
Lecture assignment, March 25, 2010
Students in the JEM 200 course at the University of Tennessee were assigned to do a photo story of the lecture itself last week. Here's a short video of how the class went. Below are some of the instructions students received about the assignment.
Students,
You will be asked to begin an in-class photo assignment in lecture this week. To prepare, do the following.
- Acquire a camera and get familiar with the kind of pictures it can take -- particularly pictures indoors with reasonably good light.
- Establish an account with some picture hosting service. Recommended is Picasaweb, Google's service.
- Upload some pictures to your account so that you can get familiar with the process.
- Review JPROF's series on photojournalism, especially the part about writing cutlines.
You will be asked to take enough pictures to select 10 to 15 good ones (which means you should be taking 50 to 100 pictures, at least) and load them into an album on your hosting service. (Picasaweb is good for this because it lets you create new albums at will. Then, it can automatically make an embeddable slide show from that album.)
You will need to write cutlines for all of the pictures that g
o into your album, so part of your assignment will be getting cutline information. We'll talk more about that during lecture.
Your photos should include examples of long range, medium range and close-up pictures. You should have more close-up pictures than anything else.
This is a graded assignment, so do some thinking about it before you come to class. Some of the best advice you can follow are these guidelines for the student photojournalist.
Crowdsourcing during the Civil War. In the video below, George Rable, University of Alabama history professor, discusses the sources of information that newspaper editors during the Civil War used for their reports about battles and the war in general. One important source was letters from soldiers -- a form of what we could call today "crowdsourcing." This means using the accounts of participants at an event to construct an account of that event.
Going Online workshop. High school teachers who want to take their publications online or who want to start news web sites for their schools should attend the Going Online workshop at the University of Tennessee on April 26, 2010. Not only will those attending receive instruction on teaching the basics of online journalism, but they will also be able to put to their publications online using a version of Ochs, the content management system that powers the Tennessee Journalist. In addition, their web sites will get server space and maintenance - free. All of this is worth far more than the $15 registration. Find out more at the workshop web site and register today.
Interviewing is not polite conversation. In journalism, you have to keep asking questions until you get the information that you need to do a story. That's the message of the short video (1:13), which was taken from the JEM 200 lecture on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010.
The lecture covered sources of information, and we have a nine-minute video of that part, too, which is located here on JPROF or also on YouTube. A longer video (8:50) on the right people to interview is available on the lecture notes page.
Fifth anniversary. JPROF.com celebrates its fifth anniversary today. In the past five years the site has grown in size (more than 400), expanded in purpose and reached around the globe to people I never would have touched or heard from. Read more.
(Posted Dec. 31, 2009)
High school journalism curriculum. JPROF is currently working with Edgenics.com to develop a new course curriculum for high school journalism. You will be hearing more about this project as we go along.
Below is a short audio slideshow on the fact that journalists have to tell their audiences "bad news." This was put together to explain to students the job of the journalist.
Principles and guidelines for writing for the web. When talking with writing section instructors about what we should teach out students about writing, I lay out four principles:
- The writing should be tighter - more concise.
- Writers should use words and phrases that are information rich.
- Writing should be shorter but with no loss of information.
- Writers must learn to write quickly and with confidence.
You can read my discussion notes on the JPROF blog.
New on JPROF. This site has addded two new features for journalism profs and students: a six-part series on photojournalism and a five-part series on graphics journalism.
The photojournalism series includes short tutorials on basic photojournalism concepts such as the rule of thirds, composition and framing, writing cutlines, photojournalism ethics, shooting picture stories and producing audio slide shows.
The graphics journalism series explains the basic concepts of informational graphics and the three types of charts (bar, line, and pie) most used by journalists. Another section talks about the standard conventions of maps, and still another introduces students to some of the great names in the history of graphics.
Each of these series of tutorials will have added features in the coming days. If there is something you would like to see in this regard, let us know. Write to JPROF (Jim Stovall) at jgstovall at gmail.com.
From the JPROF-related blogs
Right: Samuel Johnson, who defined "oats" as "A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland appears to support the people." From The Writing Wright
BOOKS for the journalist
and the journalism educator
Writing for the Mass Media (7th edition)
Journalism: Who, What, When, Where, Why and HowJames Glen Stovall. Allyn and Bacon, 2009
For more than 20 years, Writing for the Mass Media has been introducing students to all of the basic forms of media writing: the inverted pyramid for print, the drama unity form for broadcasting, summaries and other specialized writing for the web, copy platforms and storyboards for advertising. and news releases and other forms of witing for public relations. Used by more than 450 colleges and universities, this book gives students an excellent introduction to media writing and teachers the convenience of a clear, concise text with ample writing exercises at the end of each chapter.
Go to the book's web site here at JPROF.
Order the book from Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
James Glen Stovall. Allyn and Bacon, 2005
This introductory text is covered with lively writing, up-to-date examples and an inviting layout that will have students reading, wondering, asking and practicing. Just published by Allyn and Bacon, this text is a must for any journalist's shelf and any journalism teacher's classroom.
Learn more.
Go to the book's web site at Allyn and Bacon.
Order the book from Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
Nice review of JN5W (and full disclosure). My good friend and colleague (that's the full disclosure part) Herb Thompson has written a very kind and complimentary review of the book for SecondaryEnglish.com. Along with it is an interview that Herb conducted with me.
James Glen Stovall. Allyn and Bacon, 2004
How will the web change journalism? And what should you be teaching your students about the future of journalism in this digital age? This book explores those questions and offers some practical answers based on years of experience in the field of journalism. The web bring to journalism qualities present in no other medium: the combination of capacity, immediacy, flexibility, permanence and interactivity. These qualities will have a profound effect on the journalism of the future. Give your students some real insight as to the future of journalism and the way it will be practiced.
Learn more.
Order the book from Amazon (where it is incorrectedly titled Journalism on the Web), Barnes and Noble.
The Complete Editor (2nd edition)
James Glen Stovall and Edward Mullins. Allyn and Bacon, 2006
This basic editing text began its life in the early 1980s as Online Editing, the first text to teach editing from the persepctive of the computer technology that was taking over the field of journalism. Today it has been completely revised to cover not just the developing technology but also to deal with what it means to be an editor in a digital world. The book contains tightly written chapters and exercise material designed to get students into the mindset of being editors.
Learn more on this web site; go to the book's page on the Allyn and Bacon web site.
Order the current edition from Barnes and Noble.
Infographics: A Journalist's Guide
James Glen Stovall. Allyn and Bacon, 1997
This practical guide teaches students what infographics are and how they can be created. It is the only text that delves specifically into the forms of graphics and the kind of information that is appropriate for those forms. The book also discusses the modern development of graphics and the issues that surround them, such as the difficulty in creating them and the ways for journalists to avoid errors in graphics.
Learn more.
Order the book from Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
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