First Class

Great class everyone!

Thanks for your input and comments during discussion. We really delved into issues of ownership of the news, neighborhoods, civic engagement, the purpose of journalism, media consolidation, and shifts in print journalism. If you are still looking for more information on citizen journalism I encourage you to check out the readings in the right hand column. For the remaining three classes we will have a lesson and a workshop portion of the class. During the workshop you will bring what you have written and get feedback from other citizen journalists in the class.

Looking forward to see your stories next Wednesday!


Writing Assignment (Some people had some questions so I wanted to clarify)

--You will be writing an article for the Twin Cities Daily Planet. The length depends on the subject and the type of reporting you will be doing. Unless you are one of our neighborhood/community beat reporters (you know who you are), a good place to start is about 600-800 words.

--Depending on your article you should have attended an event, and/or researched your subject, and/or conducted interviews. You should have direct quotes that you can use in your article.

--At the bottom of your article list your sources along with their email addressed or phone numbers. This is standard procedure in all journalism so that editors can follow up to fact check or expand the article if needed.

--If you need examples of articles go to www.tcdailyplanet.net and take some time surfing the website.

--Please take this week to get started on an article for the Twin Cities Daily Planet and complete a first draft. IF YOU ONLY DO ONE ARTICLE FOR THIS CLASS, THAT’s OKAY. However, we will continue to improve it and work on strengthening that article throughout each workshop.