| Spring, 2002
Prof. Michael Boone
Resource
Pages for Journalism Students
Projects Pages
Related Websites
|
"Reporting was an invention of the 19th Century, but it was a
two-part invention: the emergence of a new occupation played off against
the industrialization of the newspaper..."
Michael Schudson, "Stories and
Information: Two Journalisms of the 1890s" in Discovering the News
(NY: Basic Books, 1978), p. 88
"...The future of the news industry is as much about construction as it is about
consumption. The impact of 'going digital' is the emergence of a new relationship between
publishers and their public: making news more relevant by building linkages between news
providers and consumers."
MIT Media Lab, Electronic
Publishing Division,
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In a world when anybody can create their own
"news" on the Web, what does it mean to be a journalist?
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How, particularly, has our understanding of the
journalist's role been affected by 9/11? |
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What relevance does the 20th century concept of
journalistic "objectivity," an artifact of modernity,
have in the post-modernist
21st century? If striving for objectivity is no longer the goal of
journalism, how does a journalist define truth? |
|
Why do we tell the "news" we tell, in the
way that we tell it? Is our storytelling a reflection of a primal
human need for meaning and order, a way of creating community, a way
of creating and reproducing social hierarchies, or some combination of
all of these? |
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How is the work of journalists changing? What will the
journalist of the future need to know? |
Globalization, the Internet, and new media scholarship are
creating fundamental new questions about the nature, purpose and
direction of journalism. This Topics in Journalism course will examine
these trends, with the goal of helping current and future journalists
understand the practical impact that they might have on their job
opportunities, work routines and their approaches to ethical issues.
|
AUTHOR OR
EDITOR
Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil |
FULL TITLE
The Elements of Journalism |
PUBLISHER
Crown |
| Cook, Timothy |
Governing With The News: The News Media
as a Political Institution |
University of
Chicago Press
|
| Barnhurst, Kevin |
Seeing the Newspaper |
Bedford Books |
| Hall, Stuart |
Representations |
Open University |
| Lule, Jack |
Daily News, Eternal Stories |
Guilford Publications |
| Mindich, David |
Just The Facts |
NYU Press |
The major assignments for the class will be:
| four short (2-5 page) reaction essays on the readings and
discussion, due on the last class of each month (with the exception of
the first month): 60 percent |
|
Message board contributions:
15 percent |
| Current events and AP style quizzes: 10 percent |
| A reporting project or paper that examines one of the
issues presented in the course in greater detail. The paper or project
will require at least one interview with a working journalist, as well
as one with a scholar: 15 percent. Project topics are on these pages.
Due April 4. |
January theme: What does it mean to be a journalist?
|
21 Kovach and Rosensteil, The Elements of Journalism,
chapter: Introduction, Chaps.1-3 |
24 Introduction and part one of Governing. |
|
28 Introduction and first two chapters of Mindich |
|
February theme: What is the public interest? How is it best served?
| 4 January Reaction Paper due.
Read: Elements, Chaps 4-7 |
7 Mindich, Chapter 4 |
| 11 Part 2 of Cook |
14 |
| 18 Read: Elements, Chaps 8-10 |
21 Deadline for
abstract, annotated bibliography for project |
| 25 |
28 Febuary
Reaction Paper due |
March Theme: How does the structure of storytelling affect the
nature and "truth" of the stories we tell?
| 4 Lule |
7 Lule |
|
11,14 SPRING BREAK |
| 18 Mindich, Chapter 3 and 5 |
21 Cook, "Governing by Publicity" chapters 6 and 7 |
| 25 Hall, Chapter 1,3 |
28 March Reaction Paper
Due
Hall, Chapter 4
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April Theme: What is the Future of Journalism?
| 1 Barnhurst, -- particularly the first and last chapters
|
4 Project Outline due (This
should include names and background of people interviewed or to be
interviewed) |
| 8 The Implications of The
Big Ten.
Here's why the Center for Digital
Democracy sees a problem.
Here's an aspect of the corporate structure of media companies
that is rarely discussed: distribution.
|
11Media Globalization from below:
|
| 15 The Future of the First Amendment: Freedom Forum report |
18 The Global Battle for Press Freedom: The
Committee to Protect Journalists |
| 22 What should the Journalist of the Future Know?
Conference on The
Future of Journalism Education
Columbia/Reuters Forum: The
Downsizing of Work
|
25 April Reaction Paper Due |
| 29 Project Presentations |
May 2 Project Presentations |
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