Menu

Introduction to Journalism

City College of New York

Explanatory Note

The attached syllabus outlines a course I developed and taught  between 2006 and 2008, a period that saw a seismic shift in the history of American journalism. Few of my students had ever read the newspaper on a regular basis, and few had ever published their writing on the web or even knew what a “blog” was. The first day I told them that they were going to be able to one day tell their grandchildren that they had had the experience of having a newspaper left on their doorstep each morning and of counting themselves among its most dedicated readers. At the same time they were going to be become the first bloggers on their blocks.

My expectation was that students would devote 45 minutes to one hour to reading the paper every day. The 2006 cohort was required to maintain a home delivery subscription to the Times and to read, among other things: 1) everything on the front page every day; 2) every major article on CUNY, college students, financial aid or higher education in America; 3) every article about their own neighborhoods/communities—systematically paging through the ‘Metro’ and Sunday ‘City’ sections; 4) major articles about the world of journalism. This included the ‘Public Editor’ column in Sunday’s Week in Review section and, articles in Monday’s business section, devoted largely to media industries; 4) at least two articles a day that did not meet any of the above criteria; and 5) any letter to the editor that discussed a front page news article or other story they had read.

I relaxed some of these requirements in subsequent years, assigned students “beats” and got them reading one another’s blogs. I would not teach an Introduction to Journalism course this way again. It was a singular moment. But I remain pleased with the choice, as were many of my students.

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Introduction to Journalism is a total immersion in the language, conventions, and values of the daily newspaper. Students in this class become “news junkies.” They follow and debate events large and small, track the coverage and developments on individual “beats,” and report back to the group in real time using web logs, oral presentations, and class discussion.

Together, we will be exploring the shifting definitions and varieties of news, news judgment, the sources and practices of newsgathering, standards of evidence and inference, story structure, use of detail, and many other aspects of the journalist’s craft. But all of our readings, discussions, screenings, and reporting projects will be deeply informed by the experience of reading the morning paper.

By mid-semester, we will have identified one or two areas of concern for City College students. Students will then work together to produce relevant stories for publication in the student press.

 

COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students in this class will:

    • learn what distinguishes journalism from other media of mass communication and how reading a daily paper can enrich one’s life. You’ll know what it’s like to belong to community of readers and follow events and issues as they slowly evolve over time.
    • emerge from the experience better able to discuss current events, form opinions, and participate in public discourse, as well as to use the newspaper as a practical resource in your daily life.
    • develop criteria for evaluating news judgment, sources, newsgathering techniques, and the authority of facts. You’ll also build a vocabulary for identifying the different sections and graphic elements of a newspaper or magazine as well as the distinctive forms of journalistic texts (news, features, opinion…)      
    • plan, gather information, draft and revise stories in collaboration with a professional editor and, in the process, learn to write more clearly and powerfully.

 

PARTICIPATION

One model for this class is the celebrated “publick houses” of 18th century Europe and America, bars where ordinary people gathered to share information and discuss matters of common concern. (A major difference in our case is that, this time, it won’t just be men or white people doing all the talking.). We will gather, in other words, not as news consumers and not as the audience for a media spectacle, but as active citizens collectively trying to make sense of the world. YOU ARE EXPECTED TO COME TO EVERY CLASS PREPARED TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION. From time to time you will also be asked to lead a class discussion of a particular topic or text or to argue a particular point of view, based on your reading.

 

REQUIRED TEXTS

Journalism is at a crossroads. The newspaper as we’ve known it for some 400 years may soon be supplanted by other media. It may even disappear. But it continues to form the basis for nearly everything we now call “journalism.” Even as fewer and fewer Americans are reading a daily paper, that is still how virtually every reporter, editor, radio or TV news producer begins her day. Students in this class will continue in that tradition.

    • I strongly encourage you to maintain a 7-day-a-week, home delivery subscription to the New York Times. Whether or not you choose to do so, you are required to 1) read several articles a day from that paper and to comment on them regularly. (You’ll choose many of these yourselves, but others will be assigned to you by topic and by email throughout the week.) 2) Read the print edition of Monday and Wednesday’s Times and bring them with you to class.
    • The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect.
      By Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007.
    • Assignments and reading material will be posted regularly on the course Blackboard website and emailed to you throughout the week. You must have an active CCNY email account (that you check), a current CCNY library card, and be registered at both the CUNY portal and the New York Times website in order to access these materials, file your stories on deadline, and communicate effectively with your classmates. You are required to clip or print out all assigned readings, mark them up, and bring them with you to class.

 

GUIDELINES FOR ENTRIES IN YOUR WEB LOG

You are expected to use your blog to respond to articles in the press at least twice a week for the entire semester. Your work will be evaluated as much for its regularity, up-to-datedness, and variety as for the brilliance of your insights. The following are things to consider and possible ways of commenting on stories in the news. Just as you are expected to read widely and familiarize yourself with different sections of the newspaper, different types of articles, and a variety of topics, so too should your approach vary depending on the material. By the end of the semester you should have developed an extensive repertoire and be well practiced at doing all of the below. But whatever you do, don’t just express opinions about the overall topic; make it clear that you are paying attention to the specifics and to the way the material is presented.

  • Describe the nature of your interest and how your expectations were alternately met and confounded. (e.g. “I chose this because my uncle is in the transit workers union and he’s always complaining about x, y, and z. I figured they’d cover that, but… I was surprised by the part about… I never realized they could get away with that. I disagree with the union official who said…”)
  • Inventory the sources of information. What did the reporter have to do to put all this together? Where did she go? Who did she talk to? What else should she have done and what might that have added to our understanding of the topic?
  • Compare one newspaper’s coverage to another’s (or to a radio or television segment). What did one lead with or emphasize as opposed to the other? What did they leave out and how does the missing information or added context color the reader’s understanding?
  • Identify what’s missing. Are there holes in the argument? Voices that got left out? Questions left unanswered? What additional instructions would you have given the reporter if you were the editor?
  • Assess how well a particular article accomplished its task. What did it promise and how well did it deliver on those promises? How could it have been more fully developed? What future articles does it suggest? (From the lead paragraph, you’d think this was going to be about x, but we never find out y or z. Instead, the article shifts its focus … Someone should really investigate…”)
  • Critique the narrative structure. How does the writer go about telling the story? How does she use character, dialogue, scene, dramatic tension, etc. and to what effect? What are some alternatives.
  • Discuss the claims the piece makes and the evidence it uses to support those claims. Does the reporter have a personal bias? Where’s the evidence of that?
  • Rework what the reporter did. Write a new lead, for example, using only information in the original and explain why your lead is better in terms of both grabbing attention and what the story is really all about. How does that shift the reader’s expectations? Try cutting it down to a different size. What’s hard about that? What falls by the wayside?
  • Analyze the underlying assumptions in the piece. (e.g. That everyone wants democratic elections. That women have to juggle career and family but men don’t…) What does the writer take for granted and how can you tell? Does it get her into any trouble?
  • Challenge the accuracy or underlying truth of what’s being said. Is there something here you don’t buy? Are readers bound to be left with a mistaken impression? What makes you so sure? How could the writer have avoided that trap? What would it take to convince you that what the article says is true?