Public Affairs Reporting

jour 5300
Public Affairs Reporting

Neighborhood
Immersion
Project

This weekend, at Athica, see the final day of activities and talks about the print media and the press. Go here for details. I'm on one a panel -- you can go hear me talk and talk, even on the weekend!

What the hell are public affairs and how do we cover them? And how do we make the relevant interesting?

We'll wrestle with these questions and others. This class covers the basics of covering local government but it's more than that. It's multimedia, it's neighborhood immersion, it's hard and soft news, it's features, it's pretty much everything about telling true stories.

Tuesdays and Thursdays
9:30 - 10:45, Room 241
Dr. Barry Hollander
barry@uga.edu

Class Calendar Below

Books

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark. We'll do this one early on because I want you to tighten and brighten your writing. Expect to use this throughout the semester. Buy it now.

Making Important News Interesting by Perry Parks. Buy it now.

Policies

We meet about 30 times in a semester. You get 3 free misses. On the fourth, I automatically drop you a letter grade. Non-negotiable. I don't care if you work for the R&B, the President, or the Pope. On the fifth miss, another grade dropped. There are no excused absences, so save them up for when you need them. Do not tell me why you missed.

Grades

Based on exams, writings, random number theory, and the application of whimsical suggestions by complete strangers as to the grade you deserve. The neighborhood immersion and mom & pop stuff will be at least half your grade, maybe 60 percent. Some proportion (to be put in later) will go to writing take-aways, daily good-bad stuff, meeting stories, and other assorted tortures I devise between now and the end of the semester.

Stuff

Speaking of stuff, there will be a lot of outside-of-class work, getting to know your adopted neighborhoods, moms and pops, talking to people, crunching numbers. Get ready for it, or go ahead and drop and save us both a lot of time, trouble, and in your case, pain.

Late work is never accepted. It's a "0" for that assignment. All stuff is turned in to me as hard copies. If it's late, don't bother giving it to me. Feed your recycle bin.

Uploading Instructions . . .Point your Fetch or FTP program to:

www.journalism.uga.edu/studentsites

using a browser, click here

ID and PW = college name

Sites You'll Use

Nieman Narratives
News Gems
IRE Extra Extra!
NICAR
Social Explorer
ACC Government | Meeting stuff
ACC Schools | Board Meetings
American Factfinder - Athens

“I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little …”
- Tom Stoppard, British playwright

Major Projects

Neighborhood Immersion: You'll be divided into teams and will adopt a neighborhood. Everything about the place, from history to current issues, to the people and the place, all will be fodder for your special attention. You'll write, create multimedia, analyze data, all about this one place. It'll go online. This is hyper-local at the most extreme and is the guts of the Fall class. Saddle up, boys and girls

Mom & Pop. This project is similar to the one above, but in this you focus on a local business. Tell us about how it began but most of all tell us about its struggles in today's lousy economy. That's the hook. You'll do one story with some multimedia stuff. Probably individual work, or perhaps two-person teams.

Writing Take-Aways: We'll use the Clark book every week, reading two or three chapters, talk about what you learned. At the end of the semester you will turn in a 5-7 "take-aways" that sum up the material, the stuff most useful to you, and explain why, give examples. In this you may end up taking 3 or 5 of his topics and collapse into a single one. You do not have to use 'em all.

Dossiers. You'll use open records to create a dossier on one public official. More on this later, if we do it.

Cops. You are expected to visit the police department (other than any non-voluntary visits you may have on a Saturday night) and do a "cop blotter." I'll describe this in class.

Good and Bad: We'll spend a lot of time having you find good and bad examples of local reporting, bringing them to class, and talking about them. Sometimes seeing awful stuff helps, as does good stuff. Part of your "participation" grade is supplying these stories.

Meetings and Such: Yes, you'll have to cover at least two public governmental meetings. It's important you know the pain. At least one meeting must be a serious local governing body such as ACC or ACC schools. The other can be University Council on campus, if you like.

		Class Calendar If a box is this color, we've finished that week
	Week 1 8/17-8/21	Tuesday we intro the class, each other, share a group hug. I explain plans for the semester so those of you who want to flee can do so now. There's a lot of outside work in neighborhoods and government and real people. First assignment. Go to Gradyjournal. Down on the right you'll see a tag cloud (what we're talking about). Click on the Neighborhoods tag and look at the various stories done by a previous class on neighborhoods. Some are stories, some multimedia stuff. This'll give you an idea of what you face because I expect you to do much better. For next Thursday, come up with two possible neighborhoods we might do and why. Also for next Thursday, come up with a couple of mom & pop businesses and why they'd be worth doing. On mom & pops, try to avoid bars and restaurants and all downtown. Get out in town and actually walk and talk! Thursday, for those who foolishly did not drop, read the Introduction of the Parks text and this article. Bring in a local news article about local government (not from R&B or ABH, use online to find 'em) that you think fails and write a few sentences on why you think it fails. Have a copy of the article and you're brief analysis.
	Week 2 8/24-8/28	Tuesday read Parks text, chapters 1-3. Bring to class (already typed, printed) #2 from p. 30. We may even write some in class. Also, read this post about the Seven Laws of Journalism -- this semester. Thursday read Parks text chapters 4-5. Bring in two possible neighborhoods and mom & pops (mentioned above). Be prepared to discuss. Show you've done a little homework on the neighborhoods and businesses. Give this to me in a brief, 1-page, printed summary. Sell your neighborhood! Also, The end of beats?
	Week 3 8/31-9/4	Tuesday read Parks chapters 6-7. Oh, and talk a bit about dealing with readers of your stuff. One piece here. And here. Thursday Chapter 8-9 of Parks. Narrow down teams for neighborhood immersion (chosen by me), and approval of mom & pop topics. Talk about stories you wrote the other day, write another one in class.
	Week 4 9/7-9/11	Tuesday. Read Introduction from Clark (the green writing book) and chapters 1-3. Using especially Chapter 3, find a public affairs news story from any source and rewrite. Turn both the original and rewrite Tuesday morning. Underline or highlight on the original the sections that required particular repair. Thursday. Visit by Melissa Hanna, the new executive editor of the Athens Banner-Herald/OnlineAthens.com
	Week 5 9/14-9/18 ing probs 1 2 3 4	Tuesday. Read Chapter 12 of Parks. We'll discuss, especially in relation to your mom & pop assignment. Also, 4-6 of Clark. Thursday, Read chapters 14 and 15 of Parks. Also, I'll tell you the four neighborhoods we're doing and which team you're on. Assignment: based on chapters 14 and 15, identify a "new media" kinda story and tell me in a few sentences why it works or doesn't work. Make sure you give me the URL so I can look at it myself. Do NOT use R&B or ABH.
	Week 6 9/22-9/26	Tuesday. Chapters 7-15 of Clark. Bring to class an example of a news story you found that either (1) uses one of the tools in these chapters or (2) failed to use one of these tools and could be improved by doing so. As an aside, the chapter that talks about getting the name of the dog -- my favorite. Thursday. No class. Work on mom and pops, etc.
	Week 7 9/28-10/2 The NYT does mom&pop! Other biz stories 1 2 3	Tuesday, Chapters 16-20 of Clark. Mom and Pop story due. Bring hard copy of story to me. Hold on to any other material (photos). I want to read the stories first, edit, give back, have you fix any issues and then upload it all to gradyjournal. By that time we'll have IDs set up for you. We'll talk about the Clark chapters briefly, then I'll put on the projector a few of your stories to, ahem, discuss. Thursday: I return your mom&pop stories, talk a bit about uploading 'em to gradyjournal. Read chapters 21-25 of Clark. Bring in an article that fits one of the tools mentioned in chapters 16 thru 25. If it's a story that fails at some tool, rewrite and attach. If it's a story that does a good job of doing what a tool discusses, even better. We'll talk about 'em, also set aside time for teams to meet on neighborhood stories. Clark's 25 suggestions on writing short
	Week 8 10/5-10/9 Agenda of ACC meeting Univ Council	Tuesday. Chapters 26-30 of Clark. We'll also talk about meeting agendas and covering them since you have to cover two by the end of the semester. By the beginning of class you should have uploaded your mom & pop stories to Gradyjournal. You also should have sent me a photo or two via email to go with your story (as we discussed in class last week). Directions on first changing your gradyjournal password and then uploading stories are here, just a few minutes of video to make your life simpler. Thursday. Chapters 31-35 of Clark. We'll talk about the chapters for a bit then I'll do some stuff on computer-assisted reporting. We'll play with UGA parking ticket data (to be uploaded soon).
	Week 9 10/12-10/16 calls rooster	Tuesday: Guest: Robert M. Williams Jr., publisher of SouthFire Newspapers Group (Blackshear Times, Alma Times, Charlton County Herald, Monroe County Reporter, Telfair Enterprise, and Three Rivers Gazette). These community newspapers have won a number of awards along the way. Thursday: Chapters 36-45 of Clark. Talk briefly, then turn to neighborhood project meetings. Perhaps a bit of writing. Not sure yet.
	Week 10 10/19-10/23 paid bloggers Gladwell Non-profit journalism	Tuesday: Chapters 46-50 of Clark. Read a couple of stories for discussion. Also, discuss neighborhood project stuff. Thursday: More writing, perhaps briefly discuss neighborhood project stuff. Gigantic report on future of journalism NYTimes take \| The report
	Week 11 10/26-10/30	Tuesday: In class, read this story. Also we'll do some CAR stuff, looking for stories in fire data and then some higher math on murders. Thursday: No class. Do whatever it is when you're not in class, but get out-of-class stuff done. See below.
	Week 12 11/2-11/6 project investigated nyt version	Tuesday: Writing Takeways due from the Clark book by class today. Hard copies only, at the beginning of class only, otherwise I do not want it. In the "takeaway" you are to come up with about five concept areas from the text that you found useful in your own writing, and tell me why. It may be that three or four chapters fall together in one area (for example, verbs (chp 3), adverbs (chp 5) and -ing words (chp 6) all come together for you as a single concept area of improving your writing. So you'll have about five Concept Areas, each of which may be more than a single chapter, though a couple may be only a single chapter depending on how you do them. Tell me how these areas work for you, and why, with examples. In other words, write about your writing. If you have weaknesses the chapters address, that's great, get into that. We'll talk about 'em a bit in class. Thursday: stuff Journalism's future? Or another future? Or a return to something else in the future? Or will narrative remain?
	Week 13 11/9-11/13	By now, some of your neighborhood immersion stories should be ready and uploaded to gradyjournal (photos, any other related stuff, emailed to me). We will devote most of Tuesday to team meetings on stories, approaches, strategies, and other miiltary-sounding tactics. Thursday: tba
	Week 14 11/16-11/20 site \| story	By now, all of your neighborhood immersion stories should be ready. Deadline Friday, 5 p.m. timestamp on uploaded stories and digital stuff to me via email. Some hyper-local citizen "journalism." And an interesting youtube twist working with NPR and others. Tuesday, we talk about covering political campaigns.
	Week 15 11/23-11/27	Thanksgiving Break. Kill and eat a turkey.
	Week 16 11/31-12/4	Thursday - Last day of class for us. Course Evals. Go Here!
	Week 17 12/7-	No class, but deadline for all meeting stories is 10 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16.

MATH TEST

old links of stuff I may or may not use

How to tell a story differently.

Another story told kinda like the one above.

Quick and dirty CAR example using UGA data.

Fresh off
the Net

Sex offenders mapped

Bad Jocks

Sound violations

sweet tea in Virginia

Chase street elementary, neighborhood school.

Do people really like diverse communities?

Story on new news sites. Read it.

Clarke traffic

Here is a fact sheet. The password is grady. Write a meeting advance based on the info. You will not use all of the info provided. Story is due by Friday, 5 p.m., via email. If late, don't bother sending it in. Note: this was posted here on Tuesday of this week. You were reminded Thursday.

Thursday, guest speaker ... Wil Haygood of The Washington Post. Here's one story. Here's another.

UGA majors
Fun with Google
part of my continuing messing with data for stories

And we'll read two short stories in class as examples of concrete writing: Rampaging Rooster and Pin Boys

A great court story

Tuesday, read chapters 46-50 of Clark. Watch the two tutorials on how to use GradyJournal. The tutorials are here, the journal itself here. We'll work through easy CAR data examples. First is "crony" and the other is "sewers and another is "skultrip." Pword for each file is grady. Story examples using CAR to the left.

Thursday: more CAR, heavy data lifting. I'll teach you how to do pivot tables and such with Excel. The data you'll need: crime, drugs, and exxon. I'll hand out directions. All pwords grady.

Tuesday: CAR, learning "Access." Data to play with: PrezRace, Natlarts, Hunting.

Thursday: Neighborhood stories, CAR, etc.

Tuesday. See this. And the rest of the time, discussing neighborhood stories and such. The earlier you get in some stuff, the better. Also, read this.