Preface
To the student
Nowhere-ville
Learning the tools
To the instructor
Acknowledgments
1. Reporters, Communities and Working in a Converged World
A paradox
The plan
A young reporter
The community
The audience
Convergence
A journalist's responsibilities
Core values
News matters
Journalism ethics
Objectivity
Framing
Your job
Getting it right
Strategies
Exercise one: Same story, different audiences
2. Using Tools with Skill
The task
Exercise two: Grammar, spelling, punctuation
The questions
The answers
Strategies
3. What Is News?
News defined
Mass audiences
Elements of news
Professional responsibilities and duties
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 3a: A warm-up
Exercise 3b: What's news today?
4. Turning Information into News
Finding information
Listening for the audience
The process of making news
Impact, elements, words
Characteristics of audiences and stories
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise Four: What's this story about?
5. Ledes
What is a lede?
Sixty percent of the work
Try, try again
Impact, elements, words
Writing a lede
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise Five: Ledes
6. How to Write Good: Writing for Print
The go/no-go decision
Essential and discretionary stories
What happened next? The logic of narratives
Building blocks
Remembering the mantra: Impact, elements, words
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise Six: Brief stories
7. Story Forms and Organizing Stories
The choices: Inverted pyramid, hourglass, Wall Street Journal, chronological . . .
Using your knife and fork: Form follows function
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise Seven: Building a story using story forms
8. Writing for Broadcast
RDR: The 30-second reader
The process
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise Eight: A RDR
9. Writing for the Web
Characteristics of the Web
Ledes and blurbs
The process
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise Nine: Web blurbs
10. Using Quotes
The work that quotes do
Types of quotations
Gather many, use few
Show them off
Attribution
Use "said"
Ethics: Altering and "cleaning up" quotes
Bad grammar, profanity and obscenity
Strategies
Exercise 10: Choosing quotes
11. Sources
Types of sources
Documentary sources
Human sources
Who and what can we rely on?
Levels of observation
Being careful, and teaching your audience to be careful
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 11: Plane crash
12. Facts and Allegations
News fact, news truth
The importance of context
Be fair: Facts first, words second
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 12: City Council meeting
13. Interviewing
Whose advantage?
What kind of interviewer will you be?
What kind of questions will you ask?
How will you go about your job?
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 13: Interviewing Meagan LeBlanc
14. Speeches
Why cover speeches?
Putting your audience there, or not
Your judgment, or the speaker's?
Finding the impact
The body of the story
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 14: Speech
15. Computer-Assisted Reporting
New technologies, new reporting tools
Green eyeshades and chi squares
Desktop computers and databases
Trust your reporting skills
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 15: Analyzing Valleydale's budget
16. Police and Emergency Services
Where's the impact?
Don't victimize twice
Dealing with police and fire and rescue workers
Dealing with hospital workers
Remember levels of observation
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 16a: Police report
Exercise 16b: Traffic accident
17. Covering Local Government Meetings
Who cares about local government?
Local government structure
Local government functions
Who are those other people?
Stories from local government
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 17: Covering a meeting
18. News Conferences
How do news conferences serve your audience?
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 18: Chief Honeycutt's news conference
19. Courts, Trials, Indictments, Lawsuits
A primer on the courts
Civil cases differ from criminal cases
The visual story
The charging process for criminal cases
Writing about court cases
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 19a: Indictment
Exercise 19b: Lawsuit
20. Working from Background and Other Levels of Attribution
When journalists won't identify sources
Levels of attribution
Negotiating attribution with sources
Keeping sources unidentified in broadcast media
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 20a: The finance committee's report
Exercise 20b: The city manager's news conference
Exercise 20c: Levels of attribution
21. Bringing Multiple Elements Together
How did we get here? Where do we go next?
Is the audience keeping up?
Ethics
Strategies
Exercise 21: Wise, Bullard and Prentice
Exercise 22: Finishing the story
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