JRN 300: Your Turn To Grade Me!

Student Instruction Rating System (SIRS Online) collects student feedback on courses and instruction at MSU.  Student Instructional Rating System (SIRS Online) forms will be available for your students to submit feedback during the dates indicated:

     JRN  300  730:  7/31/2017 - 8/30/2017 (SIRS only)


Direct students to https://sirsonline.msu.edu.

Students are required to complete the SIRS Online form OR indicate within that form that they decline to participate.  Otherwise, final grades (for courses using SIRS Online) will be sequestered for seven days following the course grade submission deadline for this semester.

Rating information collected by SIRS Online is reported in summary form only and cannot be linked to individual student responses. Student anonymity is carefully protected.

JRN 300: A Good Example ...

,.. of a well-reported story is here:

http://news.jrn.msu.edu/2017/07/as-technology-improves-businesses-does-it-hinder-personal-interaction/

Again, the things I'm looking at most are range of sources, and here we have a good range of source drivers, affected sources and neutral experts.

That's what we want. And it's not simply to plug people into those categories; it's to make sure that we are exploring a story broadly enough for us to get all sides. And then we make sense of the news, based on those perspectives.

JRN 300: Fatals Are A Fatal Problem

Fatals are what we call fact errors. And a fatal can be any type of error: misspelling a proper noun, like a name or a title. Missing a digit in a number. Having the wrong word in a quote.

Is that being nit-picky? No; that's journalism. Giving people accurate information that has been carefully vetted is what we do. Otherwise, journalism will be viewed as unreliable and untrustworthy by the audience.

There is no such thing as a "small" error in journalism. After all, the audience is fair to ask that if we can't get a "small" thing right, why would they trust us to get the "big" things right? Any error eradicates our credibility.

News is information people use, and like other things we use they need to be right 100 percent of the time. We would avoid an ATM machine that spit out the correct amount of money only 99 percent of the time. We'd throw away a GPS that was wrong one of every 10 times. When it comes to names and dates and starting times and quotes, the audience holds us to the same standard.

So do journalism bosses. At my last newspaper job in Las Vegas, our fatals rule was that in any one calendar year, a second fatal would get a reporter a written reprimand, a third meant you had to file a corrective plan of action on how you would avoid fatals going forward, a fourth would get you suspended and a fifth would get you fired.

And that was on me writing 250 stories a year! That's how serious it is.

So if I were to simply let fatals slide in this class, I would be doing you a huge disservice by letting you move up into the real world and letting you pay the price there. We need to recognize this here and now, and we need to fix it here and now.

Learning to write isn't journalism. Learning to organize information isn't all of journalism. Putting in a system of checking facts before, during and after writing and organizing information is what makes this kind of writing and organizing known as journalism.

Still, while this is discouraging, let's not get discouraged. The whole point of these exercises -- and getting fatals, too -- is to learn by doing, reviewing what was done, learning what could be done better, and then applying those lessons the next time.

And that's what we're going to do here, by redoubling our efforts to carefully fact-check everything we write.

Earlier this semester in some blog posts, I posted an accuracy checklist and a list of ways to avoid inaccuracies. I would strongly suggest that you revisit those two posts, and begin incorporating its suggestions in your writing routines.

Remember this: journalism isn't about writing; it's about getting it right.  

JRN 300 Reminder: Filing Your Work

As indicated in a blog post at the start of this month, I'm having some email problems that aren't your fault, but that you can help solve. While students all migrated to a new MSU email system last fall, some faculty (including me) are still waiting to be switched.

The problem is, when you send me an email form the new system that I get in the old systems, quite often attachments end up getting scrambled or locked, making it impossible for me to open them. In recent days, I am getting locked out of ALL attachments coming from a student MSU email account.

So, I'm asking you to send any emails with attachments from anything but your msu.edu email address. Please send me attachments from a Gmail account or anything else but not an MSU.edu account. You are still okay sending it to MY own MSU.edu account.

That way, I can get your work on time and be able to grade it in an expedient manner. Thanks for the help!

JRN 300: My Availability

FYI, I will be out of the office and unavailable from Thursday, July 27 through Sunday night, July 30. If there's something you absolutely need to see me about, please do so no later than Wednesday, July 26. Thanks!

Final Project: Some Good News, Some Bad News

Here's the good news: I received final project drafts from many of you by the 9 a.m. Monday, July 24 deadline.

The bad news is, not everyone sent me a draft. Worse yet, some have yet to send me a proposal for the final project.

This is a huge problem.

Why? Refer to the syllabus. The final project is 25 percent of your final semester grade. But your aren't just graded on the actual final project; you are being graded on both the final project pitch (5 percent of your final semester grade) and the draft (10 percent of your final semester grade) in addition to the actual final project (15 percent of your final semester grade).

One reason for that is that the final project is such a huge part of your semester grade, we wanted to spread out the grade into multiple segments, so that one bad day wouldn't necessarily kill you.

But two probably will. And I must warn you now, not turning in an adequately-reported final project on a topic preapproved by me by the deadline of no later than 9 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 15 will make it virtually impossible for you to pass this class.

Please see me ASAP is you have any questions or concerns. 

Weekly Story #5: An Overview

Overall we did okay, but once again the biggest problem was range of sources.

Too often, we had one side of the story, but not the other. We wrote about something or somebody but then never talked to that affected person or group. And we were sorely lacking in neutral experts overall. So our sourcing was too narrow.

A good example of broad sourcing are these stories (click below to see):

http://news.jrn.msu.edu/2017/07/flea-market-and-antique-stores-lansing/

... and ...

http://news.jrn.msu.edu/2017/07/as-long-as-there-is-a-beach-tourists-will-find-their-way-to-this-florida-resort-town/

The range of sources in each story is great: there is a subject driver (a shop owner, a resort publicist). There is an affected subject (a shopper, a tourist). And there is a neutral expert (a marketing professor, a hospitality professor) to help contextualize what the others said.

There's also a range of mediums: we have pictures, we have a map, etc..

Really, it's not necessarily the volume of sources that we are looking at. It's the range: are we deeply and broadly exploring the subject area?

Plus, please note ALL info was gained first-hand, from sources and such. There is no taking things from other media, which we should NEVER do. Media can't just take from other media; at some point, someone has to do their own reporting. It's okay that we look at other media, see who their sources are and then content those sources directly ourselves, but we should NOT be citing other media.

If you need some refreshers on soured and sourcing, see the earlier blog posts that are linked below:

Sources, we need a range

Neutral experts; WTF is that?

Neutral experts: imagine if ...

Hope this helps!

JRN 300: Final Project Reminder

Just a reminder that your final project draft is due to me no later than 9 a.m. Monday, July 24 to omars@msu.edu, as noted in the publication schedule blog post from last month.

Also noted in that post and your syllabus is that you are being graded on your draft. It will be 25 percent of your final project grade. I will primarily evaluate you based on the depth of your reporting to date.

I should also note that drafts must be on approved topics. The final project topic pitch deadline was last month, and I still don't have pitches from everyone. You were also graded on your pitches. If you still haven't submitted one, you have lost points on it, but you still need to send it to me and I need to approve it before you can work on and submit a draft by the draft deadline.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me ASAP.

JRN 300: Classes You Can Take After This One

JRN 300: Where To Find Me, And Filing Your Work

Starting Monday, my office is moving from Room 360 in the Communications Arts and Sciences Building to the State News Building, 2nd Floor at 435 E. Grand River Ave., alleyway entrance. My availability is still by appointment, and I can still be reached at omars@msu.edu and 702-271-7983.

Plus, I'm having some email problems that aren't your fault, but that you can help solve. While students all migrated to a new MSU email system last fall, some faculty (including me) are still waiting to be switched. The problem is, when you send me an email form the new system thatI get in the old systems, quite often attachments end up getting scrambled or locked, making it impossible for me to open them.

So, I'm asking you to send any emails with attachments from anything but your msu.edu email address. Please send me attachments from a Gmail account or anything else. that way, I can get your work on time and be able to grade it in an expedient manner.

Thanks for the help!