Session: Winter Term

Time: Fridays 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Instructor: Mary McGuire
 
Course Description

This is a workshop course in which you will work together as a team to produce a bi-weekly online magazine called Capital News Online. The publication is devoted to reporting on national affairs including, but not restricted to, Parliament Hill and will concentrate on stories that involve all aspects of the federal government and its activities. The magazine will include traditional news stories and photographs adapted for the Web, as well as information packages designed exclusively for the Web, including, where possible, audio and visual elements.

Course Objectives

If you successfully complete this section of the course, you should be able to:

? Find, develop and write news stories, columns and online features about national affairs beyond the headlines

? Produce stories and other information packages, using text, photos, and audio and visual content in ways that are suitable for online readers

? Produce stories and other information packages for publication online using appropriate software, including Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and Adobe Photoshop

? Take photographs using a digital camera and edit them digitally for publication online

? Guide, coach and oversee other reporters in researching and writing stories

? Edit stories and other work produced by students to produce articles and information packages suitable for publication online

? Publish a resume/portfolio online

Course Methods

For the first three weeks we will meet in class on Friday, for most of the day, for instructions on the principles and skills you will need to produce a bi-weekly magazine about the affairs of the nation?s capital for an online audience. These classes will include tutorials on digital photography and image editing and using Dreamweaver to modify the individual page templates of the publication to design your own presentations.

Starting the fourth week we will publish our first edition of Capital News Online on Friday. Issues will be published on alternating Fridays until the end of the term. On the Fridays when we are not publishing, we will meet for the morning to conduct a post-mortem on the previous edition. Editors for the next issue will hold a production meeting at the conclusion of the post-mortem. In addition, we will hold a story meeting on the Tuesday after publication days -- to plan for the next issue and assign stories to reporters.

We will operate on a two-week cycle -- the first week will be a reporting week, the second week an editing/production/publication week. When you are assigned to be a reporter, you will have the first week to find, develop and write the draft of a story, in consultation with your editors. When you are assigned to be an editor, you will spend the second week editing stories, (reporters will rewrite them according to the editors' instructions) requesting photos from reporters, planning the layout of the publication, writing decks for the contents page, writing headlines, confirming subheads, sorting out sidebar material with the reporter and making sure everything is in order for the Friday production day.

It is vital that all work be completed prior to Friday -- stories edited, pictures taken, sized and ready for insert into the templates -- so that Friday can be devoted exclusively to production activities and final review and editing.

All students will be required to help on production day. In addition, you will also be expected to participate in the life of the newsroom to the extent that your schedules permit.

All students will also be expected to produce an online resume/portfolio by the end of the term.

Books and Equipment

? Canadian Press Style Guide
? CP Caps and Spelling

You can also choose to purchase a pass for access to Parliament Hill for the term for about $30. Instructions about that will be issued in class.

Grades

You will receive a grade for your first written assignment, your story ideas, the work you produce for each of the five publications, your online resume, as well as a grade for your professional conduct during the workshop.

Initial written assignment                                      5%

Story ideas                                           (5 x 3%)   15%

Stories or story packages for               (3x15%)   45%
three publications 

Editing and/or production work            (2x10%)   20%
on two other publications    
                                         
Professional conduct                                             10%

Portfolio/resume                                                      5%

This course does not include an exam. You will receive a grade for your work in this course at the end of the term based on the assignments listed above. The passing grade for the course is a C.

Grading Procedures

This is a professional school and students will be held to professional standards in both assignments and conduct.

Journalistic work will be graded based on its newsworthiness, originality, focus, clarity, accuracy and suitability for publication online.

Rules about writing and style are to be strictly followed. The final authority on style will be the Canadian Press Stylebook, CP Caps and Spelling and the Capital News Style Guide.

Grades for news stories will be awarded based on two considerations: reporting and presentation. Marks for reporting will be based on the strength of the idea; difficulties overcome in gathering the research; and the accuracy of all details. Marks for presentation will be based on the strength and clarity of the writing for an online audience; the quality of the photos; and the effectiveness of the overall package of headlines, subheads, pull-out quotes and links online for online readers. Where the relative quality of reporting and presentation vary significantly, separate grades will be indicated and the final grade for the assignment will be an average of the two.

Letter grades will be awarded to each assignment within the following range:

? An A range grade will be awarded to excellent work. That generally means stories which are newsworthy, complete, well-written for publication online, original, precise in both fact and style, presented well visually, using appropriate photos and graphics and are related in some way to the affairs of the federal government. They are ready to be published with little or no editing.

? Grades of B, C and D will be awarded to stories that are missing one or more of the elements listed above.

? Assignments will receive an F if they are late; contain significant errors of fact; misspell the name of a person, place or institution; do not deal in some way with the federal government or federal politics; or fail substantially to meet the requirements of the assignment.

You will be graded for your editing shifts based on how well you carry out the jobs described in the separate handout JOB DESCRIPTIONS FOR EDITORS.

PLEASE NOTE: Students who fake their stories, plagiarize anyone else's work, manufacture sources or quotes in their stories, or otherwise cheat on their assignments will get more than just a failing grade. Instead, they will be dealt with according to the University rules for "instructional offences." Please read the section on Instruction Offences (Section 14) of the 2003/2004 Undergraduate Calender.

Course Policies

Deadlines:

They are a fact of life in all sorts of media work. They must be met. If you miss them as a professional journalist you will let your audience down, hurt your employer's credibility, embarrass yourself, and maybe even lose your job! In this class, if you miss them you will get an F on the assignment. If you miss them on the desk and the result is the publication is late, you may also get an F.

Extensions/Exemptions:

Extensions will not be given. In the case of genuine and serious personal or family emergencies, you may be exempted from an assignment but you must notify me before the deadline, unless absolutely impossible and you may be asked to provide some evidence of the emergency. If you are ill or injured, see a doctor. If the illness or injury prevents you from completing an assignment you must provide a medical certificate to be exempted.

Attendance:

Here, too, you will be held to professional standards. Skipping class is like skipping a day of work. You are expected to attend all classes, production days, post-mortems and story meetings. If you have to miss a class for a compelling reason, you must advise me directly, not through a friend, just as you would advise your employer. Missed classes may hurt your professional conduct mark, depending on the circumstances. Failing to advise me in advance will almost certainly hurt your professional conduct grade.

Apprenticeships:

If you are going to miss a class due to an apprenticeship, please give me a written note with the dates and details of the apprenticeship as soon as possible.

Students with disabilities

Students with disabilities requiring academic accommodations in this course are encouraged to contact a coordinator at the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities to complete the necessary letters of accommodation. After registering with the PMC, make an appointment to meet and discuss your needs with me at least two weeks prior to the first in-class test or itv midterm exam. This is necessary in order to ensure sufficient time to make the necessary arrangements. Please note the deadline for submitting completed forms to the Paul Menton Centre for formally scheduled exam accommodations is November 7th, 2003 for fall and fall/winter term courses.
 
 
Assignments

Assignment #1
Memo to Editor

Review some of the online readings provided on the course Web site, choose three sites from among the online news publications provided on the course Web site and write a memo to your editor critiquing the site(s), assessing the content, writing, visual presentation and use of multi-media and interactive elements. The critique should be between 2-3 pages. Please provide at least two examples of good ideas you found that we might be able to adopt for Capital News Online. Include the URLs.

Due: Friday, January 16th at 9:00 a.m.

Five Story Ideas

Every member of the class must provide a story proposal in writing to each story meeting, regardless of your assigned duties for that issue.

The story proposals must be submitted an hour before the story meeting and either three copies should be left in the Capital News newsroom in the location provided or e-mailed to myself, the managing editor and your editor for that issue. (The time of each story meeting will be circulated by e-mail to the class the week before the meeting and will depend on the schedules of the group of senior editors for that issue.)

Please remember Capital News is about the federal government and things the federal government does. Those should form the basis for your story ideas. As well, the publication appears every second week and you must keep that in mind with considering story ideas. The ideas you present must stand up for the two-week period and you must have a treatment and approach for the story that will stand up. In developing ideas for Capital News, it is helpful to consider the publication to be closer to a magazine than to a newspaper in terms of the timeliness and immediacy of its story ideas.

The story proposal must not start with a question, but rather a single statement describing the essence of the proposed story. It must also include a paragraph outlining the research that has been done so far and the sources contacted, as well as another paragraph explaining why this story is appropriate for Capital News.  It should also include suggestions for additional people to contact.

This extra material is important because it is possible your idea may be given to a class member who is a reporter that week to produce a story.

Three Reporting Assignments

When you are assigned to reporting duties, you are responsible for developing, researching and writing a news story -- either the one you proposed, which the editors approved, or another assigned by the editors.

Two copies of the first draft of the story must be handed in on paper and double-spaced by noon on the Tuesday of publication week. The story will be edited first by your news editor and then by Brian Gorman and returned to you within a day or two.

You must rewrite the story according to the editing instructions issued and ensure that it is pasted into our publication template on the morning of our publication day on Friday, according to specific, staggered deadlines that will be issued in class.

The original version of the story will be the one graded. You will be expected to follow instructions from the editors and teaching assistants about rewriting the story, in order to earn your grade for professional conduct. If you improve the story substantially by publication day, making changes beyond those requested by the editors, the grade you earned on the story may be raised.
 
For one of the three reporting assignments you may be assigned to our special section called Connections in which you will work as a team to present a package of newsworthy information in a Web-friendly way, using links, graphics, pictures, and possibly audio and visual elements. It's your chance to be creative and try something new and different.  Your story idea will still have to be submitted in writing on the day the story meetings are held.

Two Editing Assignments

For two editions you will be assigned one of our senior management or editing jobs as outlined in the separate handout  -- JOB DESCRIPTIONS FOR EDITORS. For each edition that you are an editor, you will receive a grade worth 10% of your final grade for the course.

Post-mortems

The post-mortems after every issue are an important part of the workshop. Students are expected to attend and participate actively in each post-mortem. It is an opportunity for the class to examine each issue ? its stories, photos, layout, design etc. The objective is to consider what we did and what lessons we have learned that can be applied to the next issue of Capital News. The first 90 minutes of each post-mortem will be led by the senior editors from the issue under discussion, followed by comments from myself and the TAs and further discussion.

Portfolio/Resume

You will be expected to produce a Web page or Web site which could serve as a resume and/or a showcase of your work online by the end of the term. The resume will be designed and built using Dreamweaver. The afternoon of the first post-mortem will be devoted to a Dreamweaver session to supplement the tutorial from the start of the term to give you more skills you can apply in the production of your online resume.

Professional Conduct

You will also receive a grade worth 10% of your final grade for your professional conduct throughout the workshop. That grade will be determined by such things as your:

? Participation in discussions during classes and post-mortems

? Effort at learning the technical skills necessary to publish online

? Success at following instructions from the editors

? Record of meeting deadlines

? Effort to help out wherever needed to get the magazine published

? General performance as a team player

About Mary McGuire

After graduating from Carleton University with a Bachelor of Journalism in 1979, I went to work for the Whitehorse Star, wrote a regular column for The Globe and Mail and freelanced stories to several other Canadian newspapers.

Then, I joined CBC Radio News where I worked for a decade first, in Whitehorse as a general assignment reporter and news director, then on Parliament Hill as a native affairs reporter and finally, a documentary producer for the weekly national program The House. Since coming to Carleton to teach full-time in 1990 I have gone back to CBC Radio several summers to produce news stories, documentaries and programs.

I have also given workshops to professional journalists at the CBC, National Public Radio in the U.S. and at various Canadian journalism conferences on interviewing and using the Internet as a reporting tool. I have co-authored The Internet Handbook for Writers, Researchers and Journalists, worked as an online trainer for the American Press Institute's online seminars on Internet Research Techniques and given many workshops on Writing for the Web.

Teaching, Editorial and Technical Assistants

Roger Martin

Roger Martin is the computer technology coordinator for the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University, and the creative director and president of Ottawa-based Web design firm SMDESIGN. Besides Web design, the company provides Internet consulting services, Web development training and communications solutions for clients ranging from small businesses to large corporations and government departments. In addition, Roger is currently working on an Honours degree in Film and Mass Communication.

Roger has worked as publisher and editor-in-chief for Techno-Based, an online business and technology magazine; as an instructor of Web design, computer programming and operating systems for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board; and recently in a short stint as regional Web developer for CBC New Media?s Central Canada division (Montreal, Ottawa, Windsor, Sudbury and Thunder Bay).

Brian Gorman

Brian has a long career as a journalist. He has worked at the Montreal Star (copy editor), Edmonton Sun (entertainment editor, movie reviewer), Toronto Star (three years, assistant entertainment editor, weekend sections), Victoria Times Colonist (magazine editor), Toronto Star (five more years, editor on the national desk, assistant entertainment editor, arts reporter/second string TV critic/showbiz tech writer), Ottawa Sun (entertainment editor, movie reviewer, features editor, theatre reviewer), and Ottawa Citizen (briefly as entertainment editor). He has also been a communications consultant, commercial writer and speechwriter, and has written for a variety of magazines.  Currently, he is the correspondent covering Canadian television for the U.S. features syndicate TVData Ltd., a division of Tribune Media.  This year he is also teaching the Arts Reporting course for the School of Journalism.

Duncan McMonagle

Duncan is an MJ2 student on academic leave from Red River College in Winnipeg where he teaches journalism. He is a former Executive Editor of the Winnipeg Free Press and prior to that was first a reporter and then an editor with The Globe and Mail in Toronto. Duncan?s two sons attend university -- one in Montreal and the other in Winnipeg.

Carly Grossman

Carly Grossman is completing her master?s at Carleton?s School of Journalism and has chosen to specialize in broadcast studies. Before entering Carleton in 2002, she earned her Bachelor?s in History from McGill University in Montreal, the city where she grew up. It was on a student exchange to the United Kingdom in 2001 that Carly first began experimenting with journalism. She started her career as an entertainment critic for The Leeds Student, before returning to McGill, where she joined the news team at The McGill Daily. Carly has since been published in The Montreal Gazette, interned at CJAD 800 News Radio and is currently working as managing editor of a national current affairs magazine called The Canadian Experiment.