Discussion: Your first drafts, common issues/mistakes, suggestions.
- Lack of a clear newsy angle
- How do you know if something is news?
- Timeliness
- Proximity
- Conflict
- Novelty
- Prominence
- Impact/consequence
- Human interest
- How do you know if something is news?
- Lack of clear nut graphs
- A nut graph puts the story in context and tells readers why the story matters
- It tells readers why they should care about the story
- It provides a transition from the lede and explains the lede and its connection to the rest of the story
- It often tells readers why the story is timely
- It contains the story’s angle
- A nut graph puts the story in context and tells readers why the story matters
- Make sure you orient the reader with who/what/when/where/why. Don’t assume they’re all New Yorkers and know what you’re talking about when you refer to a neighborhood or the acronym of a city department or agency (spell out Metropolitan Transportation Authority on first reference, for example)
- more than/less than/fewer than vs. under/over
- Past tense vs. present tense: “says” vs. “said”
- United States as a noun, U.S. as an adjective
- Opinionated writing: “unfortunately…” “the best hope for progress on this issue…” Let your sources express these kinds of thoughts. It’s your job to present the facts.
- Attribution of facts and statistics
- “Kindred was found to be submitting Medicare claims for hospice care for beneficiaries who were ineligible for hospice services, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.”
- “The unlicensed casino was found at 10 p.m. Sept. 11 behind a mirrored entrance at 5801 N. Lincoln Avenue, police said.”
- “Michigan’s estimated median household income was $51,084 in 2015, up 2.4 percent from 2014 and, factoring inflation, the state’s biggest increase since 1999, according to U.S. Census data released yesterday.
- Mechanics of quotes:
- “It will ruin this community,” he said.
- “It will ruin this community!” he said.
- “Won’t it ruin this community?” he said.
- How to use quotes effectively
- Use full direct quotes, not fragments
- Use quotes that are colorful, funny, poignant, impactful, and emotional, or that articulate the main arguments and opinions at play in your story. Don’t waste a quote on relaying facts and figures – you can paraphrase those yourself.
- Write into and out of your quotes by actively setting them up and segueing out of them
- Sometimes you can include the attribution in the middle of the quote.
- More tips on using quotes effectively here
- Show, don’t tell: “They’re only in it for greed,” he said with visible frustration. “They’re only in it for greed,” he said, pounding the table with his fist.
Assignment:
Your next story will be an 800- to 1000-word profile of an individual whose work or life is relevant to the election in some way. You can choose to go about this in a number of different ways. You might decide to focus on someone who is campaigning directly for one of the candidates (maybe a parent who has daughters and wants them to witness the election of the first female president, maybe the Trump supporter who built a 12-foot sign in his yard) or on someone whose race, religion, job, or immigration status makes the results of the election feel extra consequential for them personally (a Muslim woman who fears wearing her hijab on the subway, perhaps, because she has experienced harassment that she thinks has gotten worse because of Trump’s rhetoric; an NYC resident who has family members overseas who are refugees; a homeless veteran). You could profile someone who serves as a poll worker every election, or an activist or organizer working on one of the many hot-button issues that surround this campaign season (minimum wage, the wall on the border with Mexico, Black Lives Matter, Planned Parenthood funding).
Pitches will be due on Wednesday, September 28.
This deadline is two days later than currently listed on the syllabus for a couple of reasons: I’m combining the profile story and your spot election coverage into one story, and I want you to have a little more time to work on your pitches because I want stronger, more fully-formed pitches this time. Now that you’ve all gone through the pitching, reporting, and writing process for your first story, hopefully you fully realize now the importance of starting off with a good, workable idea.
For the purposes of this story, that means I want your pitches to contain the name of the person you want to profile, not just a description of the type of person you want to profile. This will require you to do a little bit of pre-reporting so that you can confirm you have access to this person and tell me a little bit about them, why they’re worthy of being profiled, and how the story will relate to the election.
Discussion: Bias in election coverage. What does objectivity look like in election coverage? What is false equivalence? How have different media organizations been covering the candidates so far? How have they adjusted to account for the unprecedented nature of Trump’s candidacy? Huffington Post has an editor’s note that runs at the bottom of every article about him, CNN called him out for lying in achyron at the bottom of the screen. Even the New York Times is culpable for failing to fact-check and immediately address some of his claims.
Readings for next class: Profiles written by journalism students
http://www.startribune.com/he-knows-when-to-hold-em-and-cashes-in/12986707/