Reporting in Washington

Fall 2010

Terry Mattingly, M.A., M.S., program director

Greg Perreault, M.A., program coordinator
Office hours: T, W, Th, 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

I. COURSE DESCRIPTION

Reporting in Washington (3 credits)

Journalists who work in Washington need all the basic reporting skills and then some. This
reporting class will emphasize story development, research and interviewing skills, using one of
the most intense news environments in the world as its classroom. The emphasis will be on
short-form, hard-news reporting and writing -- the kind used in wire services, newspapers, the
World Wide Web and broadcasting. Guest lecturers from the industry will discuss interviewing,
computer research, multi-platform reporting and other selected topics. The course begins with
the basics but quickly moves to advanced topics. Students will submit story ideas, background
research folders and rough drafts of stories.

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II. READINGS ADDRESSED IN LECTURES: Fall 2008

(a) John Ullmann, Investigative Reporting: Advanced Methods and Techniques. St.
Martin's Press, New York, 1995.
(b) Brian S. Brooks, George Kennedy, Daryl R. Moen and Don Ranly (The Missouri
Group), Telling the Story: The Convergence of Print, Broadcast and Online Media (Second
edition). Bedford/St. Martin's Press, New York, 2004.
(c) The staff of the Associated Press, The Associated Press: Stylebook and Libel Manual
(Current editions). The Associated Press, 2006.

III. LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students in this three-credit-hour course will:

(1) Review their basic research, reporting and news writing skills and then build on them,
so that they can cover general assignment and specialty-beat assignments in Washington, D.C.
Our minimum goal is to report and write at least one story per week, drawn from the work they
are doing in their professional internships.

(2) Demonstrate the ability to develop story ideas and information sources through direct
contact with people in the city, inside government and in a wide range of groups that relate to
the government, such as churches, colleges, think tanks, lobby groups, etc. We must never forget
that journalists touch the lives of real people day after day.

(3) Use and critique a wide range of news publications and broadcasts. It is a skill to be
able to read newspapers and to read between the lines of newspapers and find clues to what will
happen next. This class begins with this skill.

IV. COURSE OUTLINE

Sept. 14-18: Reporting in Washington

Sept. 14: What's a "story"? Where did this wire-service form of writing come from
anyway? The inverted pyramid refuses to die. (2 p.m.) What is a lede? How do you get one?
Sept. 15-17: Internships.
Sept. 18: What is a "story" in Washington, D.C.? Where do you find them? A discussion
with Greg and SIJ alum Tricia Miller of Roll Call. (2 p.m.) Lab exercise on speech stories.
(Tmatt in greater LA)

**Sept. 18: Work for Foundations 1 due at 4 p.m.**

Sept. 21-25: Reporting in Washington

Sept. 21: Adelle Banks of Religion News Service on interviewing. (2 p.m.) What
happened with that speech-story lede exercise? (Tmatt still in greater LA)
Sept. 22-24: Internships

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 Sept 25: Symbolic details, symbolic stories and the mystery of the tmatt kite. (2 p.m.)
Let's take another shot at lede writing.

Sept. 28-Oct. 2: Reporting in Washington

Sept. 28: What was the CNN memo? The "multi-platform" earthquake and your future.
(2 p.m.) Talking ledes, talking internship story ideas. How are your "pitches" going?
Sept. 29-Oct. 1: Internships
Oct. 2: What is blogging, where did it come from and what does it have to do with your
future? (2 p.m.) Looking ahead: What blogs are you reading and why? (Greg in South Florida
sunshine.)

Oct. 5-9: Reporting in Washington

Oct. 5: Becoming a better detective: Investigating your story ideas in the digital forest. (2
p.m.) Taking notes while you watch All the President's Men.
Oct. 6-8: Internships
Oct. 9: Hamil Harris of the Washington Post on feature writing in the digital age. (2
p.m.) Analyzing a classic analog feature story: "Like Something The Lord Made." (Perreault) (6
p.m.) Something The Lord Made, the movie.

Oct. 12-15: Reporting in Washington

Oct. 12: Computer-based reporting, with Anthony DeBarros of USA Today. (2 p.m.)
Your first serious meeting with the term-paper guy.
Oct. 13-15: Internships
Oct. 16-18: Fall Break

** Oct. 23: All work from Reporting in Washington is due at 5 p.m. This is a folder
containing the multi-layer stories completed during this class; five stories from pitch to
publication, with (optional) the clips themselves.**

V. EVALUATION

* 75 percent -- Students will prepare, turn in, edit and revise research folders and news
stories throughout the five weeks of this class.

All of these assignments will be graded and then, at the end of the course, the multiple
drafts will be compiled into a final folder. These grades will be averaged and a final grade
assigned that takes into account both the growth of the student during each story and during the
class as a whole. The folder includes a cover letter that, based on your internship journals,
summarizes your experiences writing and editing these five stories.

* 25 percent -- Program participation, including weekly reading and writing for the WJC
weblog. (team)

Overall evaluation of student work is based on many factors. These include but are not
limited to: oral participation, online research and written projects. A final "C" grade indicates

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adequate performance, a "B" indicates competent and complete work, and an "A" indicates
excellent, creative and integrative work.

In newsroom terms, try to think of individual grades this way. Individual journalistic
stories will be graded as follows: An "A" means that a story is almost ready to print, while a "B"
will require 10 minutes of work by an editor. With a "C" story, the work will require more
research and major revision while, with a "D," the reporter must start the story over. Finally, "F"
means that a story will not meet minimum standards at a newspaper.

Course evaluations will be done at the time appointed by the CCCU.

VI. ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

American journalism has, in recent years, been rocked by a series of scandals that were
rooted in fundamental issues of professional dishonesty. A journalist who steals the work of
another is not a journalist and the same goes for people who can't get their facts straight. Thus,
please note the following statement from the academic handbook:

"Academic dishonesty constitutes a serious violation that can result in serious penalties
and denial of credit and/or program dismissal. Any act that involves the misrepresentation of the
student's academic work or that abridges the rights of other students to fair academic
competition is forbidden. Academic dishonesty includes -- but is not limited to -- cheating on
assignments or exams, plagiarizing (misrepresenting another's work as one's own original
creation), submitting the same (or substantially the same) work for multiple assignments,
depriving other community members of necessary academic sources, sabotaging the work of
others and using without attribution a computer concept, resource, or program."

VII. ATTENDANCE

Students are expected to attend all class sessions. Excused absences must be cleared with
professors in advance -- in writing. This normally means email, received before the class session
begins. Cellular telephone calls do not count. If there are any questions, members of the WJC
team will evaluate any emergency absences, with the program director making the final call.

VIII. WEBLIOGRAPHY

(a) The WashingtonPost.com is a crucial daily news source. Note the link allowing you
to create your own version of this site with the "MyWashingtonPost" function. Direct link is:
http://www.washingtonpost.com
(b) The Freedom Forum is one of the top think tanks on the First Amendment and its role
in freedom of the press and freedom of religion: http://www.freedomforum.org
(c) The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. The motto of this site is ³Everything you
need to be a better journalist. This site -- http://www.poynter.org/ -- includes Jim Romenesko¹s
famous media news and gossip site, the digital water cooler of American journalism.

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 (d) The Media Research Center is the top conservative think tank that collects and
dissects information from the American journalism establishment: http://www.mrc.org/
(e) The National Press Club: http://www.nationalpressclub.com
(f) The American Journalism Review: http://www.AJR.org
(g) The Columbia Journalism Review: http://www.cjr.org/
(h) The Pew Center for the People and the Press: http://people-press.org/ A wide range of
research materials are stored here, including ongoing efforts to judge the public's attitudes
toward the pews.
(i) At Harvard University, the Kennedy School of Government runs a website called
"The One-Stop Journalist Shop."
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ifactory/test/ksgpress/opin/journpg.htm
(j) A Journalist's Guide to the Internet: http://reporter.umd.edu/
(k) George Gilder, The Technology & Democracy Project:
http://www.discovery.org/technology/gilder.php
(l) Dr. Jay Rosen's PRESSthink site, dedicated to "the ghost of democracy in the media
machine." http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/
(m) The global Media Channel press freedom project: http://www.mediachannel.org/
(n) The Project for Excellence in Journalism: http://www.journalism.org/
(o) The Center for Media and Public Affairs: http://www.cmpa.com/
(p) The edgy religion team at New York University produces a weblog on religion news
in the mainstream press entitled The Revealer. You will find it at: http://www.therevealer.org
(q) Terry Mattingly, MZ Hemingway and company produce a weblog entitled Get
Religion that competes with The Revealer, while dissecting mainstream religion news coverage.
It can be found at http://www.getreligion.org
(r) And most obviously, http://wjcblog.typepad.com/ink_tank/

Contact: Washington Journalism Center: 202-552-3977, Prof. Terry Mattingly: 202-548-

5219. Greg Perreault: 202-546-8713, ext. 402.