Your First Major Project
Politicos –
The plan for today:
* I will meet with students who missed the last class and divide folks up into appropriate groups. The new group will get an issue as part of the assignment, which is:
ELECTION 2008 — EXAMINING THE ISSUES:
* Explore the depth of influence of your group’s issue. Use Facebook and other social networking sites to reach out and develop sources beyond Mass. – don’t just rely on family and friends. There are also a number of events on campus and around the area over the next several weeks. Take advantage of such opportunities to go out and interview people. Get a mix of interviews, as varied as possible
* Also, include upon your experiences watching debates; reading and watching coverage; interviews; Twittering, etc:
* What issue(s) rate highly with voters? With your issue: Why/Why not? — is it important or not?
* Include relevant examples of media coverage.
In this assigment, we will replicate a real newsroom environment by dividing the class into teams (probably six teams of five members).
Each team will designate one editor who will be in charge of coordination and one editor as a copy editor.
The other members will act as reporters.
Each team will be required to submit a two-piece package –- each package must include a written in-depth text piece, as well as any combination of audio, photos and/or video. The text piece should be between 1,300-1,500 words and the multimedia piece should be between 1:30-3 minutes. There is flexibility here but editors should be keeping me up to date as we move along.
Each member of the team will receive a grade for their individual piece as well as for the overall package presentation. Team members’ anonymous evaluations of each other will factor into individual grades.
Each team will storyboard their ideas and talk through possible story ideas.
Every team member is responsible for storyboarding and collecting information. Remember, team success means individual success.
DEADLINE: The sooner, the better, but I want projects handed in by noon on Nov. 3 so that we can post them to Amherst Wire for everyone to see before Election Day. I’ve also partnered up with another group, so that our projects will get high visibility.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Every class between now and Election Day will be devoted to this project. Realistically, you are going to have devote a decent amount of out-of-class time to succeed. The rest of this week and half of next should be devoted to collecting data. After next Tuesday/Wednesday, you should be focused on writing/editing with both your text and multimedia elements.
I’ll be around for consultation — if you need to meet, let me know. We can arrange times, even on weekends.
I will meet with editors at the end of each class for updates….
Questions? Ask away.
Steve
Steve, I’m wondering when we can have access to the journalism department’s voice recorders?
Solmaaz Yazdiha
October 21, 2008
Me again, I’m trying to refer back to the Nieman articles for the midterm and none of them will open – “Sorry, but the page you’ve requested isn’t available. It appears to have been moved, deleted, or does not exist.” Not sure if everyone else is having this problem?
Solmaaz Yazdiha
October 22, 2008