Journalism assignment

Assignment

You should complete the first draft of your final research project, written in the style of feature stories learned last week. The final story should be 3 double-spaced pages and use excellent grammar.

You must use your interview and a minimum of the three sources. I recommend that you seek out written, sourced and structured. This week's draft will be given full credit for completion. The final project will be graded on the above criteria.

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You should prepare an approximately 3-pages, well-written, double-spaced and well-researched assignment. Each page has a particular purpose. The sources should be documented journalism style (which means in the reading as part of the logical flow).

Among the important questions you should address in your project:

What exactly is the problem or concern?

Include the previous interview for this project.

What data are needed to illustrate this issue on a wider scale? (Yes, you need to gather that data through your selection of news sources in the library databases.)

Are there meaningful efforts underway to address the concern on the local, state or national level? (Scope depends upon what issue you select.) If yes, what changes already are being seen because of those efforts? If not, then what reasons might explain why nothing has been done to this point?

Who exactly does the issue affect?

Why should your audience care about this issue?

I suggest you structure your paper like this ( and use relevant headings ):

An introduction, roughly 1 page: What is the problem? Who does it affect? Make clear why the audience should care. Offer an example of the problem. This is a great opportunity to weave in your interview, who becomes vital to this story

The main section, roughly 1 page: Use your data to write a the news story you would submit if these problems and resources were presented to you as a professional assignment; this is your narrative, your story, your way to showcase how you wove the interview, data and resources into a coherent story with information explaining the perspectives of the various stakeholders and opposing viewpoints (where appropriate).

The conclusion, roughly 1 page: Who might benefit from the story you have told? What did you learn about the journalism process in this project? If you had more time and more resources, what might you have done differently?