Time to Meet Adults!

Julie collected the homework. Prof. Eisman passed back quizzes and the midterm. She warned the class as passing the midterms back that the tests were graded hard. She reminded us to answer the who, what, where, when and how in news stories.

Prof. Eisman told us that she will try to get a speech writer to speak to the class on Monday.

We had a high school student visiting the class. "This doesn't happen in other classes," Prof. Eisman said in reference to our out-of-control class.

We reviewed as a class why we loved Brittany and Mitchell's bios. Prof. Eisman was not crazy about the phrase "prior to" in the bios. She said that the phrase, "sounds a little stiff."

Julie was concerned about the uncomfortable, stranger biography assignment. The class voted for the off-campus interview to be due Thursday rather than Monday.

The assignment should be 4 to 5 paragraphs long. Examples of good bios are available on blackboard.

The class felt uncomfortable about the assignment. "I just don't know adults," Alicia said. Prof. Eisman assured the class that the bio will be a valuable exercise. "Get out of your comfort zone," Eisman said.

The class then analyzed brochures and pamphlets. In looking at the pamphlets, Tasha liked the bullet points, Amy wanted bigger print, Stevia loved action words, Sam loved bright paper and Carmen didn't like awkward photos.

The class then had 30 minutes to create a four page brochure on Writing for Mass Communication. We were assured that we weren't getting graded on this.

The class presented the brochures and the truth about the class came out. Tasha highlighted the "tough love" of the class. Alicia described the class as a, "writing boot camp."

OK maybe not a job, but free advice!

Eight must-know writing basics for j students:

http://newmediamobtown.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/writing-basics-for-j-students/

We're All Getting Jobs!

Prof. Eisman started off class by telling everyone how pleased she has been with our writing lately. Good work everyone!

Frank Kauffman from Edelman came in to speak about PR. Prior to his career at Edelman, he worked as a lawyer and a journalist. He manages crisis communication, litigation media and trains company officials in media relations.

He gave 3 pieces of advice from famous writers:

1.) "'Big things are almost always best said with small words.'" This quote came from Peggy Noonan, a Regan speech writer.

2.) "'The first draft of anything is...,'" Ernest Hemingway said. Kauffman suggests putting a piece aside for a while before editing it.

3.) "'No sinner is ever saved after the first two minutes of a sermon,"' Mark Twain said. Kauffman said that people get distracted after 28 seconds of speaking with them and that in 30 days, one will only remember 5% of what was said.

Snaps to Taylor for knowing Twain's hometown of Hannibal.

"What are you trying to communicate and how are you able to effectively communicate that?," Kauffman said to ask yourself when determining how to go about a company's PR message. Public relations is simply taking a company's point of view and helping them express it to a targeted audience. Kauffman's job is to bridge the communication gap between the company and the audience.

Companies want to disperse their messages to their audiences before the media does so for them. "By definition, journalism is selective," Kauffman said, "a roll of the dice." Clear, concise communication is the goal.

Before an interview, Kauffman would instruct a company representative to pick three messages to focus on. Each message is a point of view, not a fact. Thus, the messages need to be inductively supported with facts, figures and statistics.

Facebook and Twitter are new great ways for companies to directly contact their audiences. An argument in the class broke out as to whether Facebook would be the fourth or fifth largest country in the world. Prof. Eisman and Kauffman settled the dispute and claimed that Facebook would be fourth behind China, India and the U.S.

Ninety-two percent of journalists rely on online research before writing a story and around 40 percent of the U.S. population relies on Internet sources for news. Kauffman was concerned by this since Internet sites, especially blogs, can be ill-informed. Blogs are very interconnected to news.

Most of Kauffman's clients have their own public relations departments within their companies. A company's PR department will handle common matters and a larger, outside company handles larger PR issues.

In order to get a job in PR, Kauffman suggests working in journalism or law and building up an impressive resume first. He also said that one could work as a PR intern and get a job if he or she is a standout. He said that PR is a very tiring job and that he is the oldest person in his job.

Prof. Eisman promised us all jobs and later retracted to say that she could give us recommendations. "Have I lost control?," Eisman asked.

Kauffman gave the class fun facts about Sandra Day O'Connor including that she dressed up on Halloween and gave out candy from her Chevy Chase house and that she used to date William Rehnquist.

Kauffman's final piece of advice was, "if you can write, you're ahead of eighty percent of the population." Everything is about communication, he said.

The class took a news quiz. The news quiz was not terribly difficult. Due for next class are two press releases from any two exercises on pages 298-301. Write a 140-word summary for each for a Twitter feed.

Comment on "best quote"

Ha ha, Brittany.

I am back in charge again.

So here is my question: If that was the favorite or best quote from the American Forum, why didn't I see it in anyone's article??

Professor Eisman

The Week with A Lot of Work

Well..at least we're all still alive. With the forum and the midterm, this week was worth 20% of our semester grades. I hope we all got A's!

Professor Eisman began Monday's class by passing back the "Hiker" stories (finally). She suggested that we save them as momentos of our early days of writing. After eight weeks, we've improved drastically, and Professor Eisman is beginning to know all our "little quirks."

Next, we received our Washington Post broadcast pieces back. In usual form, we argued about nearly every detail.

In general, we picked good stories, but used too many big words and weren't conversational enough.

Professor Eisman discussed the midterm and announced that she would email us the bio assignment for Monday. We also discussed the due date for our forum articles. Sometime in that process, confusion broke loose and Professor Eisman realized she was "losing control." I think the rest of us knew that weeks ago.

For those of us who couldn't attend the forum, Professor Eisman promised that somewhere, there would be a person talking about something because "that's all they do in this town."

We got a few great pieces of advice for our forum pieces:
-paraphrase bios for articles.
-don't write about ties, water, or the fact that someone tallked last night.
-"every fact you don't know is a fact I don't know, although I know more facts than you."-Professor Eisman
-use one speaker for the lead, and then transition into the rest of the article.
-or, summarize the news for the lead.
-avoid jargon!
-keep to one thought per paragraph, no matter what.

We also looked over some sample leads, and were given permission to criticize our colleagues because we'll be critcized.

Last but not least, we watched part of last year's forum and took notes to practice. We found out that we already knew how to indentify news-worthy quotes.

Tuesday, most of us covered the forum, which was a lot more interesting than I expected. I thought the best quote of the night was from David Corn: "anything involving Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, and sex, hopefully all three!" That's not a news value Professor Eisman taught us.

And then the day of the dreaded midterm arrived. We'll found out how we did soon, but I'm proud of all for making deadline.

Happy Fall Break Everyone!!!

-

Week 7

October Blues

Monday October 5, 2009

*Professor Eisman handed back the Obama assignment from last week.

Here are some tips:

-Report what happened

- Distant, but detailed

-Don’t use long quotes

-Don’t start a story with a quote

-Tuck in quotes; REMEMBER quotes are gems

-Ex: Use Mass. not the postal address MA

-Watch opinions

*The Feature assignment is due on NOVEMBER 9, 2009. It is worth 10% of our grade.

-The assignment should be double spaced and five pages or less.

-Everybody you talk to is on the record

-Everything you write can be published

-Explain that something is on the record:

Example: Hello my name is _________________ from Amy Eisman’s writing class. I’m doing a story on _______________. I need to interview students, officials, etc. This interview will only take about_________ minutes. It may be published in the school newspaper, a school publication, American Observer, The Northwest Currant, etc.

-Don’t use fake names

-Everything you do for stories needs to have evidence and hard facts.

-Do not be in the mindset of “Oh, I got a student!”

-Interview until you get a good quote/idea for a story.

-The reference librarians can help you find original sources.

-Attribute research to the original source.

-Do not quote a blog that isn’t credible.

-Do not interview friends, roommates, etc. This should not be a hard assignment, and you do not want to have a potential conflict such as a close friend telling you after the interview to not use their name.

-Interview Professors from other campuses, if possible, instead of just AU professors.

-Be able to write down your story idea in ONE sentence before you write.

-FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS

-Stay focused in whatever direction you take.

-First get the facts; then write the story.

-If you have a question, or want to do a type of story you aren’t sure about, make sure to ask. “Clear everything with the boss of all bosses.” Aka Professor Eisman. Make her happy.

*Writing Tips for Broadcast

-Simple Sentences: subject, verb, object

-Use active verbs and avoid passive voice.

-Avoid clauses that sound unnatural.

-Avoid Run-on sentences.

-Attribution is at the beginning.

-Don’t begin a story/idea with an unknown name.

-Use hyphens between things you want to say separately. Example: At the U-N.

-Avoid using too many pronouns.

-Use phonetic spelling.

-Auto only-no sound-bites.

-Remember; you are writing for the ear. Tell the story as if you are picking up the phone and telling your friend.

-READ the chapter from the other textbook for more tips.

-Use a conversational tone; keep it short and easy to follow.

-You do not have to use the inverted pyramid.

-Use present tense: “says” is ok to use instead of “said”.

*After, we listened to NPR.

-The context was before the news story.

-More descriptive and humorous than a regular news story for print.

-Do not put words in “quotes”; the listeners cannot see them.

-Listen to NPR’s 5 minute Daily Summary.

*We practiced summarizing a story for listeners and will continue to work on broadcast in the next class.

Thursday October 8, 2009

*Reminders

-Exercise 9.9 will NOT count.

-Washington Post assignment will count.

-Next week, we will go over how to cover a forum (Tuesday Oct. 13).

-There is no homework this weekend.

*Our guest speaker was Professor Carolyn Brown. She teaches journalism at American University. She came to the SOC after working as a producer for MSNBC News, Fox News. She also worked as a producer in local news in San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Arizona. Her new career started at CBS News, The Early Show, and other television shows. She is an excellent broadcast writer, and she graciously took the time to look over our work and prepare a class for us!

*Here are some of her notes (also see handouts)

-Producers are the writers for broadcast.

-TV directors have more of a technical job.

-Use conversational writing;write how you would speak.

-Read aloud after writing.

-Always check multiple sources and do research.

-Use clear, short, simple sentences.

-Emphasize the latest news of a continuing story, but give necessary background

information. What is going on TODAY.

-For TV, write for a 10-year-old.

-Keep the lead simple: Who, what, when, where, why is too much for TV writing.

-The most you can fit in is probably two or three “Ws”. Put them all in, but not in

the first sentence.

-Avoid highly technical terms like “police talk” and “PR talk”.

-Example: Instead of vehicle, use car or truck.

-Instead of the location of the vehicle accident, say- The accident happened on

Mass. Ave.

-Be careful when writing crime stories- use the correct terms.

-Do not convict a person before they are actually convicted of a crime. Say

“person of interest.”

-Avoid clichés. Example: Lucky to be alive.”

-Write in all CAPS for spoken text. Usually, sound bites are in lowercase.

-Remember, you are writing to video/pictures.

-Connect the words with the images, or you will lose the viewer.

-Use contractions if you want; this is how we speak.

-Don’t forget the basics-even though it may be a short news story.

-The “How” is sometimes hard to include in video, but include as much as possible.

-You have 1 Pass at making sure the viewer understands the story.

-There is no going back to reread parts as in print journalism.

-Using commas in TV writing is NOT a good idea.

-Commas do not show up well on a teleprompter. Use ellipses instead.

-If you need to use a comma, consider writing two sentences.

-Example: Garlic . . . Onions . . . and Salt.

-Needs to make sense when read aloud.

-Round up big numbers, unless you MUST give the exact numbers.

-$201,300.01à 2-Hundred Thousand Dollars.

- Only write for as long as you have compelling images.

-Example: A School Board Meeting about a budget would be a boring picture. So

get footage of school children instead and tell the story to images of kids.

-Sometimes, print stories and just words cannot capture a story like a video can.

Example: Obama on election night.

Use Active Voice. Do not use Passive Voice. (Subject, Verb, Object)

Tense has nothing to do with voice.

-Never use the word yesterday. If you don’t have another choice, say the day of

the week you are talking about.

- VO-Voice Over. About 20-25 seconds.

-Don’t start with “Last week”à start with current news

-For local news, give the exact location. Ex- 1400 block of Mass. Ave.

-Gray areas need attribution usually.

-Present Continuous Tense. The Subjects are_______ing.

-Be conversational to a certain extent. Do not use slang unless it is in a sound bite.

-Be aware of what video you have and when the story is going to air.

- :00-:10 zero to ten seconds.

* After the notes, Professor Brown went over our Dog broadcasts from 9.9.

-For the correct format, go to Table—Insert—Columns 2—Rows 1—Enter to make bigger.

-Here is what we came up with...

A Frederickson dog is chasing cats again after getting a pacemaker implanted. The 14-year old retriever named Wrangler is recovering today. The owner took Wrangler to the vet last week after he collapsed. Dr. Charles Eulau did the surgery. Wrangler is the first dog in the area to get a pacemaker. The pacemaker came from the local hospital.