Saturday, August 14, 2004

 
CLASS SYLLABUS
Journalism 419 Investigative Reporting
Fall 2004 Tuesdays & Thursdays 2:00 – 3:15 p.m. Comm. 1213

Instructor: William Recktenwald
Office: Communications Building 1234
Office Hours: Tuesday & Thursday 11 am until 2 pm and by appointment
e-mail teacherofnews@aol.com (please put “419” in subject line)
Office Telephone 453-3289 office phone has answering machine
Home telephone 618-264-5136 until 9 pm

Required textbook
A Journalist’s Guide to the Internet, By Christopher Callahan, Second Edition, ISBN 0-205-35098-4, Allyn and Bacon. You must have the book by Sept. 2

Objectives
This course is designed to increase skills in reporting and writing by using informational resources available on the Internet. It will introduce the student to investigative reporting, including organizational skills, ethics, contemporary methods and societal impact of investigative news stories.
We will discuss decision-making factors that arise in the selection and preparation of such stories as well as how public records and other sources of information are interwoven into stories. Each student will create an online web log to post useful links.

Conduct of the Class
The class is conducted in a computer laboratory to allow each student access to the Internet during class. In addition to exploring various Internet sites where useful information can be found, students will be required to read several investigative series’ online and be prepared to discuss them in class. The New Media Center located in the basement of the Communications Building at the Southeast corner has a large number of computers available for use everyday from 7 a.m. until midnight. The midterm project will require each student create a web page to be used while covering a news beat. As a final project each student must submit a detailed organizational plan for an investigative project.

There will be changes in this syllabus announced in class.


Cheating and Plagiarism
All work must be original, individually completed and done solely for this class. Cheating is grounds for failure in this course. Cheating cheapens you and the profession. Don’t do it.




Attendance
Attendance at all classes is mandatory. If you are unable to attend a class, you must inform the instructor before the class is scheduled to end, this can be done by e-mail or telephone message. Notification will not assure an excused absence, but failing to will result in an unexcused absence. Classes start on time; do not be late. Journalism is a business built around deadlines; assignments that are late will be downgraded. Three unexcused absences or being late to class four times will lower your final grade one level. All absences have a negative effect on your grade.

Grading
About 40 percent of your grade will be based on your final project. Quizzes, written and oral, and your midterm project count for 30 percent of your grade. Attendance at lectures and participation in class discussion constitute 30 percent of your grade.

Class Schedule
August 24 Class overview. Basics of the Internet.
August 26 Mindset of the investigative reporter and information gathering strategies.
August 31 TBA
September 2 Finding people places and things.
September 7 Quiz on Internet directories
September 9 TBA
September 14 TBA
September 16 TBA
September 21 Web page construction What is a blog anyway?
September 23 Web page construction
September 28 Investigative series discussion
September 30 Investigative series discussion
October 5 Keyword and Catalog search engines
October 7 Investigative series discussion
October 12 Web page construction
October 14 Midterm project due
October 19 Open meetings and Freedom of Information Act, have reviewed the Illinois Attorney General booklets which will be distributed.
October 21 Quiz on Open meetings and FOIA
October 26 Guest speaker
October 28 Boolean Logic
November 2 HTML tag searching
November 4 Investigative series discussion and Discussion of final project
November 9 Data analysis, and Internet reliability
November 11 List Serves Have read Chapter 10 of the textbook
November 16 Quiz on reliability and list serves
November 18 Finding stories
November 30 Ethical considerations
December 2 Final Project Presentations
December 7 Final Project Presentations
December 9 Class desicussion

posted by William 12:28 PM