JRN 300: Your Thursday 3/1 Homework

For our midterm, we will once again tap into the eyes and ears of our communities to see if we can find new story ideas. We will be doing again our earlier questionnaire assignment. The hope is that it will refresh your possible list of story ideas for down the stretch of this semester, and that you may have a better idea of what to look for and what comments really do have good story ideas behind them.

Each person is individually responsible for making a trip to your beat, though you may group up and ride-share as needed. 

* What do I do for this assignment? During your beat visits I want you each to interview three random people WHO CANNOT BE MSU STUDENTS OR EMPLOYEES on the street and get answers to the following questions from each: what drives you crazy about living or working here, and why? What excites you about living or working here, and why? What would you like to see changed here, and why? What do you want to never see changed and why? And what question or questions do you have about living or working here that you'd like to see answered, and why? (With the Ingham County team, be clear that "here" means Ingham County as a whole, and not just the town in which you happen to be interviewing someone in.)

You may tell people you are MSU journalist students doing research for possible stories for Spartan Newsroom, a public news Web site run by the school. And that should be your standard identification throughout the semester; you're not just doing stories for a class; the stories we do will be posted to a news sites read by the public. This isn't pretend-we're-doing-news; we are doing real news stories that real people will really see. 

Please do all these assignments in Word documents with the following in the upper left-hand corner (as we should with all assignments):

• Your name
• The deadline date
• The assignment slug (in this case, midterm questionnaire)

Then, attach your Word doc to an email and send it to me at omars@msu.edu (that's omar with an "s" at the end; please make sure you get that right as there is a omar@msu.edu who does NOT forward misspent emails to me). Your deadline will be no later than 8 a.m. Tuesday, March 20. That gives you more than a full week after spring break in which to get this done.

Questions? Call or text me at 702-271-7983; email me at omars@msu.edu, or see me during my listed office hours at The State News Building, 435 E. Grand River Ave., 2nd floor/alley entrance.

Good luck, everyone!

JRN 300: Our Publication Schedule For Tuesday/Thursday Classes

So we're about to start our out-of-class story cycles, where you will have about 7-9 days per story to go from approved idea to draft form to final version. (Keep in mind, in the real world you'd usually have 7-9 hours, max, to do the same. So this schedule does already take into consideration that you have other things going on.)

Basically, every Tuesday you will have a draft due for your latest story and the idea for your next story due before class, and in-class we'll review everyone's previous stories. And every Thursday, you'll have at least some lab time (and at times that lab time will be the whole class) to finish your latest story, which will be due by the end of class.

Here's our out-of-class story schedule for the semester for Tuesday/Thursday classes:

Story 1:
Idea due: Tue. 2/6, 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Idea OKd: Tue. 2/6 by 6 PM
Draft due: Tue. 2/13, by 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Draft returned: Tue. 2/13 by 6 PM
Final version due: Thu. 2/15 by end of class to WordPress
Final version posted: Fri. 2/16 by 6 PM
Review as class: Tue. 2/20

Story 2:
Idea due: Tue. 2/6 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Idea OKd: Tue. 2/6 by 6 PM
Draft due: Tue. 2/20, by 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Draft returned: Tue. 2/20 by 6 PM
Final version due: Thu. 2/22 by end of class to WordPress
Final version posted: Fri. 2/23 by 6 PM
Review as class: Tue. 2/27

Story 3:
Idea due: Tue. 2/20, 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Idea OKd: Tue. 2/20 by 6 PM
Draft due: Tue. 2/27 by 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Draft returned: Tue. 2/27 by 6 PM
Final version due: Thu. 3/1 by end of class to WordPress
Final version posted: Fri. 3/2 by 6 PM
Review as class: Tue. 3/13

Story 4:
Idea due: Tue. 2/27, 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Idea OKd: Tue. 2/27 by 6 PM
Draft due: Tue. 3/13 by 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Draft returned: Tue. 3/13 by 6 PM
Final version due: Thu. 3/15 by end of class to WordPress
Final version posted: Fri. 3/16 by 6 PM
Review as class: Tue. 3/20

Story 5:
Idea due: Tue. 3/13, 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Idea OKd: Tue. 3/13 by 6 PM
Draft due: Tue. 3/20 by 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Draft returned: Tue. 3/20 by 6 PM
Final version due: Thu. 3/22 by end of class to WordPress
Final version posted: Fri. 3/23 by 6 PM
Review as class: Tue. 3/27

Story 6:
Idea due: Tue. 3/20, 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Idea OKd: Tue. 3/20 by 6 PM
Draft due: Tue. 3/27 by 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Draft returned: Tue. 3/27 by 6 PM
Final version due: Thu. 3/29 by end of class to WordPress
Final version posted: Fri. 3/30 by 6 PM
Review as class: Tue. 4/3

Story 7:
Idea due: Tue. 3/27, 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Idea OKd: Tue. 3/27 by 6 PM
Draft due: Tue. 4/3 by 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Draft returned: Tue. 4/3 by 6 PM
Final version due: Thu. 4/5 by end of class to WordPress
Final version posted: Fri. 4/6 by 6 PM
Review as class: Tue. 4/10

We also have our final project story, which should be your most elaborate, ambitious trend-and-issue story of the term. Please note the idea is due in late February, even though the draft isn't due until late March. That's to give you a lot of time to work on this. Please don't wait until the last minute.

Final Project:
Idea due: Tue. 2/27, 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Idea OKd: Tue. 2/27 by 6 PM
Draft due: Tue. 3/27 by 8 AM to omars@msu.edu
Draft returned: Tue. 3/27 by 6 PM
Final version due: Thu. 4/19 by end of class to WordPress
Final version posted: Fri. 4/19 by 6 PM
Review as class: Tue. 4/24

Questions? Please ask me. And good luck, everyone!

JRN 300: Your First Story Pitch

Now, we will get to work on what we will soon be making a weekly habit: coming up with a story pitch that we will then turn into a developed trend or issue story from our geographic beat.

The exercises we have done until now have been to get you familiarized with your beat and the sorts of trends and issues percolating on the grass-roots level. Now, we need to take one of our ideas and start developing it.

So, you have this week to develop your first story pitch. That means settling on a trend or issue topic; summarizing what you think what may be most interesting, relevant and /or useful about your story FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A READER WITHIN YOUR BEAT; thinking about what kinds of sources you'll need; and then sending a summary of all that to me. (Examples of story pitches are included in the next blog post here.)

For our first and second pitches, you must send me your pitch in a Word doc to my email at omars@msu.edu. YOUR FIRST AND SECOND PITCH DEADLINES WILL BE NO LATER THAN 8 A.M. TUESDAY, FEB. 6. I expect to have your pitches approved and returned to you by the end of that day; at that point, you may begin working on your first weekly story.

It's important that we make sure we don't work on duplicate topics, so I ask that each group work on some way to coordinate what topics you're each working on. That may be by emailing each other or forming a Facebook or Google group where you can keep track of who is working on what story idea.

Either way, I won't allow more than one person to do the same topic as another has done, or that has already been done by the group this semester. For the Lansing group, that means all pitches this semester have to be ones not done by others. 

In developing a pitch, if you feel like you don't have a strong handle on a good topic, look at revisiting or even redoing the exercises we have done to date. That includes:

• Googling your community to look for good topic ideas
• Doing environmental observation by walking around your community, being curious and then acting on your curiosity
• Polling passers-by to try to get a sense of what the concerns are of the community
• Looking at Census data online to see if there are statistics that underscore a potential trend or issue worth exploring
• Reviewing earlier blog posts on how to develop story ideas

You can also supplement what you've done by scheduling meet-and-greets with civic leaders like mayors, city managers, police chiefs, chamber of commerce officials, and such. Ask them what are key issues and challenges facing the community and what is being done about them. For each team, many officials are already used to JRN 300 teams from the past contacting them; don't assume they'll blow you off. They may, or they may not.

Later this week, we'll post more examples of previous stories done by 300 classes to give you a better sense of what you need to be working on, along with some helpful tips on how to put together your stories and a publication schedule for the summer that you'll be responsible for following.

But for now, let's get rolling on our first story pitches. If you need any help, please contact me at 702-271-7983 or omars@msu.edu.

Good luck! 

JRN 300: Good Story Pitch Examples

... from a previous 300 class of mine.

Story idea #1: St. John’s percentage of people 25 or older with a bachelors degree is 8 percent lower than the national average and I’d like to explore why that is. I want to talk to some people and find out if they went to college and some people who might be at the age where they are considering college and what might persuade them not to go. I’d like to know where the people who are from that area go to college if they do chose to get a higher level education and whether those same people stay in the St. John’s area or move away. I would talk to people in the city, specifically some who didn’t go to college to find out why, and also some who did and where they went. My neutral expert could be a social studies professor who is an expert specifically on how where you grow up can shape how far you go on in your educational career. 

Story idea #2: My second story idea is I’d like to explore the issue of soil erosion being a hazard to water sources. With the amount of farm land in Clinton County there is plenty of space for development and the county has a lot of rules in place made by the zoning board so that soil erosion is under control and doesn’t pollute lakes and streams. I would talk to someone from a construction company to see what they do to avoid erosion and also talk to someone from the zoning board to find out how those rules are enforced. A neutral expert could be someone who studied water supply and how construction and development can affect water sources. 

JRN 300: Examples of Final Projects

Here are some examples of final projects from past classes of mine. The topics are trend and issue stories like the ones you are doing, but generally these were the best, most ambitious topics likeliest to have the most interest and audience reach.

One big difference between a weekly story and a final project is the depth of reporting. Please note these stories have no fewer than six people quoted and/or paraphrased, along with lots of data and multiple neutral experts. 

Really, a final project is just a weekly story on steroids. An ambitious topic; lots and lots of reporting; and a deep dive into the subject matter.

For a peek, click on the links below.

Lansing's South Side struggling, but improving

Plans for express bus service in Meridian Township

"Schools of choice" in Meridian Township