Reporting & News Writing Syllabus: 2023
Georgetown School of Continuing Studies, 5001–01, Fall 2023
Assignments:
Beat Memo
Interview
Profile
Event Story
Government Meeting Story
Feature Story
Local Business Story
Reporting Plan
Enterprise Story
Thursday, Aug. 24: The News
Before Class: Read “Your Writing Sucks,” “Advice for Beginning Journalists” and “Understanding the News Cycle at a Newspaper,” Guy Bergstrom
Reading: “How the Format Affects the News”
Discussion: What makes a piece of information newsworthy? How do you rank different stories by importance within a news outlet? How does the medium affect news values?
Workshop: Which Is Newsier? Regional Daily Newspaper
Workshop: Which Is Newsier? Nightly News Broadcast
Reading: “Deconstructing an Associated Press Lede,” Ryan Teague Beckwith; “Florida Woman Bites Camel,” by Calvin Trillin; “Leads: The Agony of Square One” from The Associated Press Guide to News Writing, René J. Cappon; “The Power of Leads,” Chip Scanlan
Discussion: How do you write a classic Associated Press lede? How do you decide which information should go at the top of a story? What are some alternatives to the standard straight-news lede?
Workshop: Writing a classic Associated Press lede. Working from a set of facts, the class will collaborate to write AP-style ledes for several stories and discuss what makes an effective introduction to the story.
For Fun: “Read the Epic 333-Word Lede from a Boston Newspaper’s Account of the Death of Blackbeard” and “The Worst Ledes Ever?” Ryan Teague Beckwith; “Anecdotal Leads for News Stories Reporting the End of the World,” Hart Seely.
Test Yourself: Pop Culture Pop Quiz: Movies
Assignment: By the end of class, students will decide on a neighborhood in D.C. that they would like to cover as a class. The ideal beat includes a mix of residential and commercial areas, is accessible by Metro and has an interesting demographic mix. Past classes have focused on Brookland and Anacostia. Other possibilities include Bloomingdale, U Street, Shaw, H Street, Navy Yard and Southwest Waterfront.
Quiz: Common Grammar Mistakes: Its vs. It’s
Inspiration: “High-Rises Replace Parking Lots in Mount Vernon Triangle,” Lori Aratani; “In a Changing D.C. Neighborhood, Urban Art Helps Preserve Community Roots,” Mary Hui; “Navy Yard on Track to Be D.C.’s Most Densely Populated Neighborhood,” Sadie Dingfelder.
Thursday, Aug. 31: The Beat
Before Class: Read “Beat Reporting: What Does It Take to Be the Best?” Chip Scanlan; “How to Turn a Garbage Assignment Into Front Page News, Literally,” Ryan Teague Beckwith; “Washington’s Beat Sweetener Media Culture,” Ari Berman; “A Beat-Sweetener Sampler,” Timothy Noah.
Discussion: What is a beat? How does a reporter find news off a beat? How do you develop official and unofficial sources? How do you decide what are the best stories off a beat? How do you go from idea to pitch?
Workshop: Students will pitch story ideas from the neighborhood chosen in the previous class and critique each others’ pitches. We will collaborate to write a two-sentence pitch to an editor on the best ideas.
Discussion: How do you write an effective headline? How does the medium affect the format of a headline? What are the different kinds of headlines? How have headlines evolved in the online era?
Workshop: Students will be given an assortment of stories and will brainstorm headlines for each, including variations for print, social media and search engine optimization.
After Class: Read “A News Story Doesn’t Have a Headline Any More. It Has Headlines,” Ryan Teague Beckwith; “This Study on the Most Effective Facebook Headlines Will Make You Cry Tears of Recognition,” Will Oremus.
For Fun: “How the Media Would Have Covered Columbus’s Discovery of the New World,” Dan Amira.
Test Yourself: Pop Culture Pop Quiz: Music
Assignment: Write a beat memo for your new neighborhood. The beat memo should include a brief history of the area, its demographics, potential sources and a list of possible story ideas. Due Sept. 7. No rewrite.
Quiz: Common Grammar Mistakes: Compound Modifiers
Inspiration: “Columbia Heights Hipsters Stumble Into Target Territory,” Monica Hesse; “Immigrants Gather at a Starbucks in Northern Virginia for a Taste of Home,” Tara Bahrampour, “Homeless Tent City in the Heart of Gentrifying Washington Gets Moved Out,” Ian Shapira; “What’s a Wendy’s Doing There? The Story of Washington’s Weirdest Traffic Circle,” Dan Zak, “‘NO EXCESSIVE BARKING’: A Chevy Chase dog park divides the rich and powerful,” Jessica Contrera; “A Bridge Too Far: The Dating Divide Between D.C. People And Arlingtonians,” by Airey.
Thursday, Sept. 7: The Interview
Before Class: Read “Creative Interviewing” from The Writer’s Complete Guide to Conducting Interviews, Michael Schumacher; “How Journalists Can Become Better Interviewers,” Chip Scanlan; “The Art of the Interview,” Ann Friedman; The Art of the Interview, Lawrence Grobel; “Writing About People: The Interview” in On Writing Well, William Zinsser; “Donald Trump Has Never Had to Hide in a Fridge,” by Brian Klaas.
Discussion: How does a reporter get a source to open up? What are some common tricks of the trade? What is the difference between friendly and hostile interviews? How do you ask good follow-up questions?
Workshop: Students will brainstorm a list of questions for an interview of public figure in a tightly controlled setting. The class will then discuss how to frame the questions better.
Discussion: How do you write in plain English? How do you avoid jargon, purple prose and off-key tone? How do you learn to edit yourself and others to make writing more clear and lively?
Workshop: Students will rewrite a short story to strike unnecessary words, replace jargon with plain English and break up needlessly long sentences without losing any of the basic information.
After Class: Read “The Tale of English,” Ryan Teague Beckwith, “News Writing: Information is Not Enough” in The Associated Press Guide to News Writing, René J. Cappon
Assignment: Interview someone on your beat. This could be a local newsmaker, such as a politician, or it could be just someone interesting, such as a small business owner. Transcribe the entire interview. Due Sept. 14. No rewrite.
Quiz: Common Grammar Mistakes: Quotations
Inspiration: “Anthony Scaramucci Called Me to Unload About White House Leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon,” Ryan Lizza; “James Reston Jr. on the ‘Frost/Nixon’ Interviews,” Terry Gross; “David Sedaris Wants You to Read His Diary,” Ana Marie Cox; “How Humankind Could Become Totally Useless,” Nate Hopper; “Fresh Air’s 10 Favorite Terry Gross Interviews,” Nicholas Quah.
Test Yourself: Pop Culture Pop Quiz: Books
Thursday, Sept. 14: The Profile Story
Before Class: Read “Planning and Execution” in The Art and Craft of Feature Writing, William Blundell; “The Checklist,” “Generic Story Template for Reporting and Writing,” and “Please Plagiarize This Story,” Ryan Teague Beckwith.
Discussion: How do you write a profile? How do you make your readers care about a profile subject? Which parts of their life story do you include? What are the telling details that sell the story?
Workshop: Students will pitch a profile based on their interview from the previous assignment or another person on their beat. They will critique each other’s pitches.
Discussion: How do you structure a news story? How do you begin and end? How do you decide which information to highlight in the headline and lede? How do you edit yourself effectively?
Workshop: Students will break down the structure of a profile story given out during class. We will discuss what the writer is doing in each section and why this structure fit this story.
After Class: Read “The Hourglass,” Chip Scanlan; “Read the Epic Newspaper Correction on the Wright Brothers’ First Flight,” Ryan Teague Beckwith.
Assignment: Write a profile of the person you interviewed for the preceding assignment. (Exceptions granted with permission.) Interview friends, coworkers, rivals and customers as well as the person profiled. Due Sept. 21. Rewrite due Sept. 28.
Quiz: Common Grammar Mistakes: Affect vs. Effect
Inspiration: “The Peekaboo Paradox,” Gene Weingarten; “The Ballad of Old Man Peters,” Jon Franklin; “A Muslim Leader in Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds,” Andrea Elliott; “The Real Heroes Are Dead,” James B. Stewart; “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” Gay Talese; “Kim Kardashian Has a Few Things to Get Off Her Chest,” Caity Weaver.
Thursday, Sept. 21: The Event Story
Before Class: Read “Spin, Pseudo-Events, Misinformation, Moral Panics and Disinformation,” Ryan Teague Beckwith; “From News Gathering to News Making” in The Image, Daniel J. Boorstin; “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection” in The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan; “On Bullshit,” Harry Frankfurt; “The Truth Sandwich: A Better Way to Mythbust,” Communicate Health.
Discussion: How do reporters prepare for rallies, festivals and other planned events? How do you avoid falling victim to spin? How can you avoid spreading misinformation?
Workshop: Students will write a breaking news story based on a set of facts. The class will then collectively write a version of the story. New facts will then be introduced and the class will rewrite the story.
Workshop: Students will go over one or more of the profile stories filed by a classmate and discuss what worked and how to improve it.
Discussion: How do you use quotes effectively? What makes something quotable? How do you use partial quotes? How do you handle a source who rambles or uses jargon?
Workshop: Students will take a transcript of an interview with a notable public figure and find the best quotes. They will rank the quotes and discuss how they would use them in a story.
After Class: Read “Deconstructing Associated Press Quotes,” Ryan Teague Beckwith.
Assignment: Find an event to cover. Events must be cleared with instructor ahead of time. Write a breaking news story off of the event and turn it in within an hour. Story must be turned in no later than Sept. 28. Rewrite due Oct. 5.
Quiz: AP Style: Trademarks
Inspiration: “Activists say Capital Pride overtaken by corporations and rich gay men,” Justin Wm. Moyer; “Donald Trump takes center stage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival,” Rachel Lewis; “The Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved,” Hunter S. Thompson; “Digging JFK Grave Was His Honor,” Jimmy Breslin.
Thursday, Sept. 26: The Government Story
Before Class: Read: “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell; “Candidates’ Vices: Craps and Poker,” by Michael Weisskopf and Michael Scherer; “‘There’s Nothing Better Than a Scared, Rich Candidate,’” Molly Ball; “The Front-Runner’s Fall,” Joshua Green; “13 Ways of Looking at a White House,” Ryan Teague Beckwith.
Discussion: How do you cover a government meeting? Where do you look in an agenda to find the potential story or stories? How can you prepare before a meeting to file a better story quickly afterward?
Workshop: Students will go over information from a government meeting and turn it into a news story, with a focus on getting rid of bureaucratic terms and putting it in plain English.
Workshop: Students will go over one or more of the event stories filed by a classmate and discuss what worked and how to improve it.
Discussion: How do you illustrate a story? How can a photograph convey the gist of a news story or feature? What makes a photograph good? What are some tricks non-photographers can use?
Workshop: Students will go over a selection of recent news photographs and discuss which ones worked and what they liked about them.
After Class: ”The Falling Man,” Tom Junod; “The Most Influential Images of All Time,” Ben Goldberger, Paul Moakley and Kira Pollack
Assignment: Attend a government meeting. You will write a news story based on — but not necessarily limited to — topics discussed at the meeting. The meeting must be cleared with instructor ahead of time. Story due no later than Oct. 5. Rewrite due Oct. 12.
Quiz: AP Style: General
Inspiration: The Power Broker, Robert Caro; Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72, Hunter S. Thompson; All the President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; The Boys on the Bus, Timothy Crouse
Thursday, Oct. 5: The Crime Story
Before Class: Read “Covid Chronicles, Vol. 4: Journalist gets too close to the ‘mayhem;’” “A Q&A with a ‘Daily News’ Crime Reporter,” Paul Hiebert; “Dirty Secrets in a Crime Reporter’s Backpack,” Adam Martin; “Execution” in True Crime: An American Anthology, Joseph Mitchell; “Covering the Cops” from American Stories, Calvin Trillin.
Discussion: How do you cover crime and legal issues? What makes some crimes newsworthy and others not? What are the legal and ethical concerns when reporting on crime? How do you talk to victims and suspects?
Workshop: Students will write a crime story based on information from a charging document and the text of an interview with a police captain. The class will then critique and rewrite the story collectively.
Discussion: What is libel? How do you avoid it? What are the legal defenses to a libel charge? How should you respond when threatened by the subject of a news story?
After Class: “What Journalists Need to Know About Libelous Tweets,” Mallary Jean Tenore.
Quiz: Is That Libelous?
Assignment: Students will write a feature story from their beat. Story due Oct. 12. Rewrite due Oct. 19.
Inspiration: In Cold Blood, Truman Capote; The Corpse Had a Familiar Face, Edna Buchanan; The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcolm; The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson; “A Part of Cop’s Past Lies Dead,” Jimmy Breslin; “The Color of Blood,” Calvin Trillin.
Thursday, Oct. 12: The Business Story
Discussion: How do you write about business at the local level? What are some common types of stories about local business? How do you get business sources to open up?
Workshop: Students will go over information about a business and turn it into a news story, with an emphasis on using plain English and avoiding business jargon and finding the key facts and figures.
Workshop: Students will go over one or more of the feature stories filed by a classmate and discuss what worked and how to improve it.
Discussion: What is search engine optimization? How do you find trending topics on Google? What are the upsides and downsides of buildling coverage around SEO?
Workshop: Students will take an assortment of stories in the news and practice looking up and comparing search terms on Google Trends and checking Google News.
Assignment: Profile a business on your beat. You will talk to the owner as well as employees, regular customers, a competitor and any experts on the industry. Due Oct. 19. Rewrite due Oct. 26.
Inspiration: “Twist-Ties vs. Plastic Clips: Tiny Titans Battle for the Bakery Aisle,” Paul Lukas; “Behind the Scenes of Barbie’s Insanely Popular, Painstakingly-Produced Instagram,” Julia Rubin; “Business Outsider,” Ken Auletta; “The French Fry Connection,” Richard Read
Thursday, Oct. 19: The Feature Story
Before Class: Read “Stalking the True Short Story” in Writing for Story, Jon Franklin; “The 3 Things in Every Great Magazine Story,” Ryan Teague Beckwith; “Kurt Vonnegut and the Shape of Stories” and “Are certain familiar narrative arcs inherently appealing?” Kurt Vonnegut.
Discussion: What makes a good feature story? Where do you find ideas for features? How can you use the power of description and observation to make your feature writing stand out?
Workshop: Students will practice pitching feature stories off their beat for freelance publication, including writing an email and offering alternatives.
Discussion: How do you use statistics? How do you keep from overhwelming the reader with numbers? How do you choose the most notable figure? What are good sources for statistics?
Workshop: Students will be given a recent national poll. They will decide on the most important results and write a short brief highlighting those and noting the polling methodology.
Assignment: Write a feature story on your beat. It could be a slice of life about a local institution, a trend piece or a group profile. With advance permission, it could also be an event or individual profile. Due Oct. 26. Rewrite due Nov. 2.
Inspiration: “Other People’s Stuff” in Off-Ramp, Hank Stuever; “The Old House at Home,” Joseph Mitchell; “Vietnamese Refugees in New Orleans Find a Little Peace,” Rick Bragg.
Thursday, Oct. 26: The Broadcast Story
Before Class: Read “Writing for Broadcast” in Sound Reporting, Jonathan Kern; “Radio: An Illustrated Guide” from Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio, Jessica Abel; “Get great sound every time with this field recording checklist,” Rob Byers.
Discussion: What are the elements of a radio story or TV story? How do you capture ambient sound, write a voice-over and prepare for a live interview? How do the news values of broadcast differ?
Workshop: Students will rewrite one of their stories into a one-minute radio spot, including an introduction from the host. Selected students will read their radio hit to the class.
Discussion: How do you use documents to advance your story? How do you find documents? How do public records requests work? How do you verify leaked documents?
Workshop: The class will decide on a public record on our beat, find the appropriate agency’s public information officer and collectively write a FOIA letter.
Assignment: Rewrite one of your previous assignments as a script for a one-minute radio spot, following proper formatting for a broadcast piece. You can treat quotes from your piece as though they were on tape. Due Nov. 2. No rewrite.
Inspiration: Radio scripts of Edward R. Murrow; All I Did Was Ask: Conversations With Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists, Terry Gross
Thursday, Nov. 2: The Enterprise Story
Discussion: How do you go deep on a story? How do you use statistics and data to back up a story? How do you find real people to tell the story? How do you conduct deeper interviews?
Workshop: Students will write a pitch for their best ideas for an enterprise story. The class will critique the ideas and suggest ways to narrow the focus, find sources and make the story compelling.
Assignment: Write an enterprise story on a subject on your beat. This could be a more in-depth look at a subject you previously covered, a trend, a profile of a major local player or a contentious local issue. The final story should be at least 1,000 words and have more sources than a regular weekly assignment. Reporting plan due Nov. 9. Draft due Nov. 23. Story due Nov. 30.
Thursday, Nov. 9: Social Media
Before Class: Read “How to Tweet Newsy Links for Attention,” Ryan Teague Beckwith.
Discussion: How do you write for social media? What are the tips and techniques that draw and sustain an audience? How can you use social media to find sources and breaking news?
Workshop: Students will draft social media status updates for an assortment of news stories aimed at different audiences. The class will also practice searching for status updates and verifying a social media account.
Discussion: What are the next forms of media? How can stories be told in emerging media? How do you adapt the rules and lessons of traditional journalism for the future?
Workshop: Students will discuss stories they have written in class this year and brainstorm how they could have been done in alternate story form, broadcast or using social media platforms.
Inspiration: “Six Alternative Story Forms That Can Stand Alone,” Vicki Krueger; “10 Ways to Engage Readers With Alternative Story Forms,” Vicki Krueger; “76 Ways to Make Money in Digital Media,” David Plotz; “New Revenue for News,” Josh Sterns; “Find Out if President Trump Would Let You Immigrate to America,” Lisa Marie Segarra and David Johnson.
Thursday, Nov. 16: Peer Review
Workshop: Students will critique the first drafts of their enterprise pieces.
Thursday, Nov. 23: Thanksgiving Holiday
Thursday, Nov. 30: Journalists’ Roundtable
Workshop: A group of reporters and editors from the Washington area will talk with the class about how they got their start, how they do their jobs and their advice on journalism.
Thursday, Dec. 7: Fact-Checking and Pitching
Discussion: How do you fact-check an article for a weekly or monthly publication? What are primary and secondary sources? How do you conduct a fact-checking interview with a source?
Workshop: Students will be given a magazine article and highlight the facts they would check. They will then search online for sources for some of the facts in the story.
Discussion: How do you frame a story idea without an editor? How do you decide which publications you should pitch? How do you sharpen a pitch to a specific news outlet? What are best practices for approaching editors?
Workshop: Students will write a pitch email for one of their stories.
Inspiration: “Chelsea’s Guide to Freelancing,” Chelsea Cirruzzo.
