Out-Of-Class #1: Time To Start Thinking ...

... about your topic! For this first one, I would like you to come up with a topic that fits several parameters, which I'll list here:

1. That the topic be a news topic, rather than a features or sports topic.

2. That the topic be an issue or a trend, and NOT an event. What I mean by that is that you cover something that's broadly happening in society (such as a tuition increase or summer employment), rather than a happening (a house fire or a fund-raiser).

3. That the topic be one that you can report locally, doing interviews in-person. With out-of-class stories, I am testing your ability to find people to actually talk directly to, and to do interviews face-to-face.

(So, doing a story on riots in Turkey may be tough, because you're not in Turkey. But doing a story on how students of Turkish descent at MSU are reacting to the rioting, and/or how MSU study abroad students are handling the issues there, is much more doable.)

4. That the topic will allow you to meet the prerequisites of an out-of-class story, as detailed in the syllabus. (Minimum of three sources you interviewed yourself; minimum of 700 words; double-spaced and conforming to AP Style; a word count at the end; a list of sources with their phone numbers and email addresses (so I can do spot checks on whether you really talked to them and whether your citations were accurate, ect.)

5. That the story can be fully reported, written and turned in within a 1-2 week time frame after approval.

6. That I approve your tip sheet for the project.

Now, WTF is a tip sheet? It's the proposal sheet that you will have to submit to me no later than by 9 a.m. next Tuesday, detailing your proposal in the following categories:

YOUR NAME. Duh.


THE TIP SHEET DUE DATE. That will be Oct. 1, 2013


STORY SLUG. Please keep it to 1-3 words

STORY TOPIC. Describe in a few sentences what you expect this story to be about.

NEWS VALUE. Describe the news angle or angles you are exploring. Refer to news values from the blog or textbook. Explain how your proposed story is interesting, relevant and/or useful to the audience.

AUDIENCE ANALYSIS. Describe in a sentence or two what niche of readers would be interested in or affected by your story.

STORY SOURCES. Do some Googling and come up with a primary interview source and at least two other interview sources who you wll try to interview in-person or by phone.. Give me their names, titles, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and Web URLs (if applicable) for each source. YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE CONTACTED THESE SOURCES BEFORE LISTING THEM HERE! In fact, if those sources, in the end, don't make it into your story because you later find better sources, that's okay, too. I simply want to see where you're starting out in trying to get sources to interview.

DOCUMENTARY SOURCES. List any print and online sources you plan to rely on in writing your story. These should be secondary sources only; I want your story topic to rely on primary sources who you actually interview yourself.

SOURCE CREDIBILITY AND EXPERTISE. Why are these good sources? How are they appropriate and available for the story?

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST. Disclose any and all conflicts of interest you may have. Do you have a personal interest in this topic and/or sources? Are you related to or friends with your sources? Does this topic directly affect you? Is it regarding a group or activity in which you participate or have an interest? If the answer to any of these is "yes," then you should find another topic.

PUBLICATION POTENTIAL. What publications or media might be interested in printing or posting this story? What do you think your chances are of publication or distribution?

STORY ALTERNATIVES. If the planned story does not work out, what will you do instead? Will the planned story be modified? Will an entirely different story be needed? Briefly explain fallback plans.

I need you to put all this info in the handout I passed out Tuesday or on a Word document and send it to my email account at omars@msu.edu, with the subject line of TIP SHEET 1, by the deadline of 9 a.m. next Tuesday.

To help get you started, here are some examples of topics from past JRN 200 classes of mine:

Pros and cons of living on-campus versus off-campus at MSU
"Culture of rape" on college campuses, including MSU
Summer vacation employment plans among college students at MSU
Prevalence of fake ID use among college students at MSU
Finals week stress among students at MSU
How foreign students acclimate to being on an American campus, like MSU
Seniors at MSU facing the "real world" after graduation
Recycling at MSU

Notice how many of the topics are local, or MSU is being used to put a local focus on a broader trend. That's important, because (once again) YOU WILL NEED TO INTERVIEW PEOPLE YOURSELF!

This isn't a term paper; this is journalism. And there's a big difference. With a term paper, you find and cite the reporting and research that others have done, and put that in your paper. But in journalism, YOU do the actual reporting and research YOURSELF.

You don't cite CNN saying there was a bombing in Boston; YOU call the Boston authorities YOURSELF, and do YOUR OWN interviews to get the raw material that makes up your story. You don't cite a study done by Harvard University that you found online; YOU call the person who authored the study and interview him or her YOURSELF.

That's why I think the best topics are local. It's probably a lot to ask novice journalists to do a story on American foreign policy and get President Obama on the phone yourself.

With this being an online class, I know there are many people who are nowhere near East Lansing. And that's okay. Find topics in and around your geographic area. My biggest concern isn't that it's an MSU topic; it's that it's a topic you can report first-hand. The latter is the reason so many of the past topics I listed were MSU-centric. It was proximity.

In previous in-person summer classes, I had some students commuting from home, and some took topics from their home areas. For example, one student from the Port Huron area did a story on plans to expand the bridge linking Port Huron to Canada. So it's no big deal if stories are coming from Albuquerque or Nashville or suburban Detroit (which are actual locations of some of our current JRN 200ers!).

And if you have any problems whatsoever in coming up with a topic, or detailing a topic, do not hesitate to call me (517-432-3009) or email me (omars@msu.edu) or stop by my office (435 E. Grand River Ave., at the corner of Grand River and Division, across the street from Berkey Hall and next to the SBS bookstore) during regular weekday business hours.

Hope this helps. Good luck, everybody! 

First Ledes: Overall

On this assignment, since it's the first one I gave you a 4.0 simply for finishing the assignment without any fatal fact errors, as defined by the syllabus. (If you did have a fatal, you were penalized 1.0 per fataled item.)

In future assignments, we will actually grade every item. But for this first one, I wanted you all to get used to writing on deadline, and for us to have some blog material to go over to see what we did well (and why it was good), and what we could have done better (and how).

Off we go, then: 

First Ledes: Ledes I Liked

This one was straight and to-the-point, containing who (two children), what (died), when (Saturday night), where (in a bedroom of their home), why (as a result of a fire) and how (caused by matches the children were playing with).

Two young children died Saturday night in a bedroom of their home as a result of a fire caused by matches the children were playing with.



This one did the same, but specified the names of the children:

Krista and Jeremy Lewis were found dead after a fire consumed their bedroom while a babysitter cared for them Saturday evening.


This one did a nice job of emphasizing a telling point from the larger story: 

Women who have achieved a graduate degree are found to get divorced more frequently than women without higher education, according to a study done by sociologists at the University of Florida.

This one, too:

Marital disruption is more likely among highly educated women, researchers said in a new study released on Monday.

This lede said everything people needed to know about this story, without having to read any further. The rest was just detailing the major points already offered by the lede:

A family of three was taken to the hospital after their car was struck by an oncoming train on Monday night, but no one was seriously injured.

This next lede emphasized end result not in terms of what, but why and how:

 A failure to have warning lights at a train crossing on Michigan Avenue resulted in a vehicle carrying a family of three getting struck by an eastbound train.


This lede did the same, with an emphasis on why:

County Treasurer Vernon Sindelair pleaded guilty Wednesday to the embezzlement of $1.7 million in tax receipts to pay for his deceased wife’s medical bills, police investigators said.

With ledes, we try to go to end result and ultimate outcome; that is, how did things end up? But if the story is still ongoing, we can instead focus on what's next, like here: 

County Treasurer Vernon Sindelair will face up to 30 years in prison and over $1.5 million dollars in fines after pleading guilty Wednesday to embezzlement charges.

First Ledes: The News Is The News!

News isn't that someone did something or something happened; it's what, exactly, was done and/or happened.

For example, we'd never write a lede about a football game like this ...

The Spartans played Notre Dame in a football game Saturday.

... because that lede doesn't say anything of substance. That's because the news isn't that a game was played; it's who won or lost.

The lede we'd do would be something like this:

The Spartans walloped Notre Dame 107-0 Saturday.

Keeping that in mind, does this lede work?

A research study conducted by sociologists at the University of Florida revealed new information Monday regarding marriage stability in relation to women’s education level.


I'd argue it does not, because while it tells us there's new information, it doesn't tell us what the new information is. A better lede tells us what happened, like this one:

Marital disruption is more likely among highly educated women, researchers said in a new study released on Monday.

Now, the reader doesn't simply know that researchers discovered something; they know what the something is. 

First Ledes: Flip The Lede

In most instances, we want to emphasize not that someone told us something, but what the person said. That is, we want to put substance ahead of attribution.

In this lede, we put attribution first, then the news:

A recent University of Florida study has shown that one-third of women who entered graduate school after marriage faced more marital disruption such as divorce or separation.    

And that's okay. But I would argue that it would be better to flip the order of news aqnd attribution, so that the news comes first and the attribution last, like this:


One-third of women who entered graduate school after marriage faced more marital disruption such as divorce or separation, a recent University of Florida study has shown.

Please note the only difference is that I flipped the sequence of news and attribution, and eliminated an extraneous "that." Outside of that, it's exactly what you wrote, but with the news being the first thing the reader gets to.

First Ledes: That Didn't Take Long

I'm sorry to say that we've already had three fatal fact errors, in which we offered inaccurate facts as defined by the syllabus.

And, in the interest of learning from each other this term, we will review each and every fatal so (hopefully) we can learn from the mistakes of others -- and avoid such mistakes ourselves, going forward.

The first one was pretty typical: instead of saying something was $1.7 million, we said it was $1.7, with the million part missing. $1.7 on its own means one dollar and seventy cents, which is not $1.7 million, but it is a fatal.

Yes, that's a fatal. And yes, the vast majority of fatals are something simple and basic that was overlooked.

The second was pretty much the same: we said $1.5, when we meant $1.5 million.

For the third, we referred to the embezzler as a city treasurer. In fact, he was a county treasurer.

We get this idea that fatals are a HUGE error, but the reality is overwhelmingly fatals are simple mistakes. Like forgetting a word. That's why we urge such stringent fact-checking.

So please, be vigilant. After you finish writing be sure to double-check every name and age and title and date and, yes, dollar amounts.

Now, with this assignment you were dinged 1.0 for any one component of the assignment with a fatal. But in future assignments, one fatal means a 1.0 on the entire assignment, period.

Seriously, it's that serious. Like I've said, journalism isn't about writing; it's about getting it right. Let's make sure we build good fact-checking habits so this is a rare circumstance.

First Ledes: Don't Forget The Obvious

Like here:

Vernon Sindelair, the county treasurer, has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than 1.7 million for his wife’s cancer treatments.

Problem is, he embezzled 1.7 million what? Dollars? Tubes of toothpaste? What?

It's dollars. We know that. But our audience doesn't, unless we make it clear by adding a dollar sign: $1.7 million.

Let's be sure we don't overlook the obvious in telling our stories. The big things won't make sense if the little things aren't clear.