Proposal for a practical course in journalism, duration (on a full-time basis): three months.

Rudie van Meurs / POLDERPERS.NL

Goal: to acquaint students of journalism with the practical fundamentals of the profession. Journalism is not a science, it is a craft, an attitude, a state of mind.

Target group: first- and second-year students of journalism.

Major items:
1. The news article
– what is news? (definition and criteria: e.g. topicality, importance to the reader, distance, degree of celebrity of the most important people in a story, departure from the norm)
– what are the sources of news? (press releases, press conferences, free gathering of news by looking around, classified ads in the newspapers, things you hear, etc.)
– how to compose and write a news story
– selection (how to choose between different stories, which story is the most important and why?)

2. The feature article
– how to choose the perspective for an article
– sources
– how to compose and write a feature article

3. The interview
– preparation
– ethics (What can and what can’t you use for an interview? Should people be allowed to read an interview before publication? Should you differentiate between people who are used to being interviewed and those who aren’t?)
– questioning (leading questions and open questions, suggestive questions, confrontational questions. How can you use silence during pauses in the interview? When should you interrupt a monologue?)
– how to compose and write an interview (the difference between a full-quote interview, a question-and-answer interview, etc.)

4. Editing
– planning articles
– rewriting
– headlines
– graphic design
– the importance of photography

During the entire course each day starts with a 30-minute discussion of the news of the preceding twenty-four hours.

The schedule

Week 1

Days 1 and 2
What is news?
Anything that’s fit to print.
All those things that happen in the space of time between two editions of a newspaper.
Important and unexpected information.
News is what you read in the newspapers.
There are many definitions.
The course starts by asking students to give their own definition, followed by a discussion.

During the first few days articles from newspapers could be distributed and students asked to express whether they are news articles and, if they are, why? For whom is the news intended? Students can learn by reading different newspapers to see how news can be interpreted in different ways.

Exercises are given in which students are confronted with different facts. They are asked to formulate where news starts to be news. For example:
– a house burns down in Moscow
– a house burns down in Moscow and a man is killed in the fire
– a house burns down in Moscow and a well-known actor is killed in the fire
– etc.

All practical training exercises are followed by a discussion and short lectures on the theory of news. The book `The Universal Journalist’ will be used for this purpose, although it needs some adaptation because in Russia some terms are used in a different way. Examples given by David Randall will be compared with situations with which students are confronted.

Attention is focused on the ethical aspects of news: how far can a journalist go in giving very private (or highly disgusting) details? Subjects like objectivity and neutrality are also discussed. Students are asked to look for examples of biased reporting in local newspapers.

Days 3, 4 and 5.
NB: Most important to successful training in journalism is that students learn to deal with facts. They need to be told repeatedly that they must use a maximum of facts and a minimum of irrelevances. Each time teachers will produce examples of how to write facts in the lead, the report and the headlines.

Sources of news

The third day starts with students being asked to name sources of news, followed by a discussion.

Students will also be asked to recount local rumours they have heard and to check these rumours.

After this, students will be asked to select news from press releases. They must check the news given in press releases and have to find complementary information from other sources.
Logistical problem: for some universities it is difficult to obtain press releases. They could try to establish contacts with local newspapers to see if they could give them their old press releases.

Students will be trained to prepare for a press conference by means of role playing. The teacher will act as the guest of the press conference, answering the questions. Articles will be written about this simulated press conference and these articles will be discussed in the group. After this training, a real press conference will be organised at the university. Journalists will be invited, so students can ask them what kind of sources they use.

After the press conference and the discussion on the resulting articles, a lecture will be given on the role of press agencies. Students will be asked to write news reports from information provided by press agencies. By working with news from press agencies, students can learn to select and edit news.

Logistical problem: universities have no connection with press agencies. This problem could be solved by asking Independent Media to send some of the information it receives from press agencies to the universities on a regular basis. David Randall promised to send the foreign newspapers used to the different universities (via Irina Ratmir). Press releases and news from the press agencies could be distributed in the same way.

Week 2

From now on, each day will commence with an exchange of information on the daily news. Because students need to become familiar with newspapers, magazines, radio and television, they need to pay attention to the whole spectrum of mass media. They must therefore read at least two newspapers every day, listen to one news programme and watch a news documentary on television. Every day, students can be asked to make a contribution to the discussion of local news, Russian news and world news. During these discussions a wide range of journalistic topics will arise: sources, selection, ethics, differences in reporting in different newspapers, identity of newspapers, radio and television programmes. Why does Izvestia have a different approach to the news than Pravda or Pravda Komsomolyets has? Why does local newspaper A have a different selection compared with local newspaper B? Why is the news in a tabloid sometimes totally different from the news in a broadsheet? Why is the news on Channel 1 presented in a different way? Why does its style and selection differ from Channel 2? And so on.

Day 1
Discussion about a variety of news sources: billboards, classified ads, readers’ letters, official documents, things you hear in the street. How can these be used? How can a journalist train his/her curiosity?
Practical training: students are given a letter which was published in a local newspaper and are asked to investigate the background. Students will also be asked to go out into the street to find news and report on it.

Day 2
Lecture on the writing and composition of news articles. Special emphasis will be placed on the writing of the first sentence of an article and on the writing of introductions.
Articles in the local press will be analyzed and rewritten.

During the entire week a lot of short news articles will be written. These will not be discussed individually but in the full group. It is important to create an atmosphere in which students can criticize each other.

Days 3 and 4
Practical training in writing first sentences, introductions and news articles. The students are given facts from which they are required to construct a news article.

Day 5
Every student tries to find his or her `hero of the day’ and writes a news article on him or her.

During the entire week students will keep a diary about what they have been doing. At the end of the week they will write an article about their experiences. The teacher will discuss these articles with each student individually, so no time is reserved in the schedule for this discussion.

Week 3

The entire week will be spent on producing daily papers. Students will be divided into small groups (five or six people) and each group will be given a different task. For example: one group will be asked to gather local cultural news, a second group to gather local political news, a third group will work on news about crime. Each group will select a chief, who is responsible for coordinating the work and distributing tasks. Each group will be responsible for a given number of articles. Each afternoon the chiefs will have a meeting to select all the material and to give priority to the articles (Which article is most important? Which can be left out?).

Week 4

During the entire week students will again be asked to keep a diary. At the end of the week they must write a personal story about their experiences. The teacher will discuss these stories with each student individually, so no time is reserved in this schedule for evaluation of these stories.

Day 1
Lecture on different genres in journalism: analytical article, background article, reportage, feature, etc. The students are divided into groups and are given a set of articles (four or five). The groups are asked to say what kind of articles they are. How do they differ from each other? Why has the author chosen this genre? Could it have been written in another way?

Lecture on the art of feature writing. The five-step method:
– point de vue
– working plan
– gathering information
– inventorying and selection of material by drawing up a writing schedule
– writing the story.

Special attention will be paid to the opening lines of a feature article. Students will be given the opening lines from existing articles (journalism as well as literature) and asked to comment on these. Do these lines compel them to read on? If so, why? Do these lines only describe an atmosphere or do they also reveal something about the story which follows?

At the end of the day students will be divided into groups, which will work together for the remainder of the course to produce a magazine. Each group will choose a coordinator (the coordinators could also be appointed by the teacher). After the formation of the groups the teacher will give a brief lecture on the theme that has been chosen for the magazine the students will produce. (The alternative is to ask the students to choose a theme for themselves. In this case they should be asked to do so as homework and the best theme chosen on day 2).

Homework: students are asked to comment on a set of feature articles which they will have already received at the start of the course. How are the stories composed? Do they begin well? Which sources has the journalist used?

Students are also asked to read chapter 7 of the book `The Universal Journalist’.
Day 2
The results of the homework will be discussed in a plenary session. After this, the students will be given a few hours in which to gather information and write a short, personal piece on the subject: a day in the city. For this piece they are expected to go out and talk to people, to look around, to make inquiries. It will not suffice for a student to write his/her story from behind his/her desk.

The articles resulting from this assignment will be discussed by the teacher later on with each student individually, so no time has been reserved in this schedule for this discussion.

After the students have finished their articles the teacher will take time to elaborate on the journal and the theme. This theme should be local, so that writing about it can be accomplished without travelling and at no great expense. For example: student life could be taken as a theme. The major theme will be split up into subthemes from which the groups that have been formed the day before will take their subjects.
Homework: All students are asked to put on paper the point de vue and a working plan for the subject their group has been assigned.

Day 3
In the groups formed on the first day students will discuss the results of their homework. After this they will decide on a point de vue and compose a working plan for the whole group.
All the working plans will be discussed in a plenary session.
The groups will then come together again to distribute tasks and put their working plan on paper. The groups will start gathering the addresses of people they want to talk to and also general information on the subject they want to write about.

At the end of the day the teacher will meet with the coordinators to hear about all the plans in detail. The rest of the students will be given an assignment to write a short news article. These articles will be discussed later with each student individually, so no time is reserved in this schedule for this discussion.

In the evening an informal party could be given to celebrate the start of the work on a new magazine. This celebration will give the students – who will work very closely together for three months – a chance to meet each other in another setting.

Day 4
On day 4 a few brief assignments related to feature writing will be given to all students. First of all they will be given feature articles from newspapers from which the leads (the first few lines that introduce the reader to the story) have been removed. They will be asked to write new leads. The results will be discussed in plenary session.

After this students will be given a subject for a feature. They will be asked to think a few minutes about a point de vue for this subject and to put it down on paper in no more than three lines (they should be able to read it aloud in the time it takes a match to burn). The results of this assignment will also be discussed in plenary session.

For the next assignment the students will be shown a photograph. They can look at it for a few minutes, after which the photograph will be taken away. The students will be told what the photograph represents (for example: three Yaroslavl students in front of the university after they have just successfully passed an exam). The students will be asked to write a short article (not more than half a sheet) in which they describe what they saw on the photograph. The articles will be discussed in plenary session.

Day 5
Feature writers will be invited to comment on the plans made by the groups for their features. Everything the students have learned in the past week will be discussed with the guests. For the rest of the day the students will work on their features in groups.

Week 5

Day 1
Short lecture about the interview as a genre and as a method of obtaining information, followed by a discussion:
– How do the students feel about interviews?
– Who do they think are good interviewers (radio, TV or newspapers) and why?
– Is it possible to have an honest interview or is an interview always coloured by the opinions of the interviewer?

After the discussion the teacher should draw conclusions and give a brief introduction to the art of interviewing:
– how to prepare
– how to obtain information on the person who is going to be interviewed
– the psychology of an interview: how to anticipate the reaction of the person who is going to be interviewed to certain questions.

Short, simple interviews could be simulated by role plays in which one student plays the role of an interviewer and another the role of an interviewee.
Homework: students will read chapter five of The Universal Journalist. Their teachers will also give them a list of titles of books they should read if they want to acquire more knowledge about interviewing and the psychology of an interview (for example: Carnegie and Levy). This list will be prepared in the coming months by a working group.

Day 2
The students will discuss in groups a set of interviews that have already been published and that will be given to them by the teacher (this selection of interviews – very good and very bad ones – will be prepared by a working group). The students will be asked to analyze these interviews:
– Can they see how well prepared the interviewer was by the questions he/she asks?
– What do they think about the questions? Do they find any of the questions impertinent or distasteful?
– What do they think about the composition of the interviews?
– Do the interviews give honest impressions of the people who have been interviewed?
– What is the central question in each of the interviews? Is it about opinions? About character? About an event?

These questions will first be dealt with in groups. The group discussions will be followed by a general discussion in which all the interviews will be evaluated.
N.B. For this exercise videos and tape recordings can be used in addition to written interviews to instruct students on how interviews should and shouldn’t be conducted.
The rest of the second day will be used to give the students an opportunity to work on their feature articles. The teacher will provide support to all the groups working on their articles.

Day 3
Each student will be given the assignment to conduct an interview with someone in the university – from the dean to the cleaner. They will have the whole day to make an appointment, to prepare and to write.

Day 4
Plenary discussion of the interviews conducted by the students on day 3. The students will then be asked to make appointments with the journalist they will interview on day 5 and to prepare questions. The rest of the day will be used to work in groups on the feature articles for the magazine.
Homework: Who would you like to interview and why? What questions would you ask (students should put their answers down on paper).
Day 5
Discussion of the results of the homework. Interviews with journalists chosen by the students on day 4 (if necessary, these interviews could be conducted by telephone). The rest of the day will be used to write down the interviews.

Week 6

Day 1
Discussion and evaluation of the interviews conducted on day 5 of week 5.
Lecture on ethical problems:
– How should you deal with information given to you `off the record’
– What should you do if the interviewee asks you to let him/her read the interview before publication?
After the lecture students are confronted with concrete cases and are asked how they would react in these circumstances. For example:
– Only a minute ago a serious traffic accident occurred. Can you ask questions of survivors or should you respect their privacy?
– A girl has been murdered. Can you question her parents? And if you can, how should you go about it?
– You know that the civil administration is holding back an investigation into a heavily polluted district in your town. A civil servant offers you the results of the investigation. He wants money. Is it ethical to pay? Is it ethical to seduce the secretary to obtain the information? Is it ethical to steal the information?
– An employee of a company hands you a report on fraud and corruption in his company. You guarantee him absolute anonymity. After your publication, a huge scandal breaks out. Everybody wants to know the leak – the board of directors, your editor-in-chief, the police. They threaten you with jail if you don’t disclose your source. What will be you answer?
Appendix: three cases from Russia, Bulgaria and the Ukraine published by the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht (The Netherlands).
N.B. A working group will gather cases which can be used for this exercise.
N.B. Role plays could be developed and used to encourage students to think about ethical problems.

The practical training is followed by a lecture and discussion on ethics and etiquette.
– Should a journalist adapt him/herself? When should you wear a tie? Is a journalist a chameleon or should he/she not let him/herself be distracted by rules which are not his/her own.
– If you have dinner with someone you are interviewing, who pays the bill?
– Can a journalist accept presents?

Day 2
Students will be given a set of interviews by their teacher made in the fifties, sixties and seventies. (NB – this set will have to be prepared by a working group). They are asked to compare these interviews.
– How do they differ?
– What could be the reason for these differences?
The students will discuss these questions in small groups first. This will be followed by a plenary discussion.

Day 3
Lecture on ethics.
– Could you interview a racist?
– Are there questions which you should not ask?
The lecture is followed by role plays in which the teacher plays the role of an interviewee who, for example:
– has just lost a close relative
– doesn’t give clear answers
– only wants to talk off the record
– etc.

Day 4
Work on feature articles. Check up on the working plans: is everything working out as foreseen? If necessary, modify working plans.

Day 5
Work on feature articles.

Week 7
The entire week will be used for work on features and finishing stories that haven’t been finished yet. This week could also be used for an excursion to a newspaper.

Week 8

Day 1
Brief reports on the progress of work on the feature articles.
All the students are given an assignment to write a short, personal article that will be published in a magazine at the end of the course.
Lecture on producing a magazine:
– the formula
– the target group (readers)
– the use of illustrations, the language that is used etc.

After this lecture students will be given three different magazines and will be asked to analyze them. They will first discuss their analysis in groups, which will be followed by plenary reporting and a short plenary discussion.

Day 2
An editor of a magazine will be invited as a guest speaker. He will give a lecture on the financial aspects of newspapers, the importance of advertisements, the problems of distribution, etc. Afterwards, students will be asked to draw up a plan for a new magazine.
– Who is the magazine intended for?
– What kind of articles would you want to be in it?
– How many journalists would you need?
– etc.

In the afternoon the plans will be presented and discussed with publishers who have been invited. The best proposal for a new magazine will be chosen.

Day 3
Students will work in groups on more detailed plans for the magazine chosen on day 2. The results will be discussed in plenary session. For the rest of the day the students will work on their feature articles.
Homework: Every student will write a short article for the magazine developed during days 2 and 3.

Day 4
Plenary discussion of the articles the students wrote for homework (a short reading break should be given before the articles are discussed). Attention should be paid to the question of whether the articles would fit into a magazine such as was proposed during days 2 and 3.
Lecture on editing:
– How to look at the composition of an article
– How to look at the language
– How to rewrite or adapt.
Afterwards, students will rewrite each other’s articles.

Day 5
Plenary discussion of the rewritten articles.
Lecture on headlines and introductions for feature articles.
Students will be given feature articles that have already been published, from which the headlines and the introductions have been removed. They will be asked to write new ones. These new headlines and introductions will be discussed in plenary session.

Week 9

Day 1
This day will be used to finish feature articles and personal short articles.

Day 2
Attention needs to be focused on the layout of the faculty magazine, so a number of local and other newspapers should be compared for layout. Either the teacher or a specialist from outside should give a lecture on the format, design and the selection of the articles on the different pages. How to classify a news story, an article with special interest, an interview, sports and so on.
Discussion about the name of the newspaper.
NB: In the Netherlands two different models of layouts – one of a broadsheet and one of a tabloid – are available (if necessary) for the Russian universities.

Day 3
Groups will give each other their feature articles for reading, editing and rewriting. So if there are four groups, each group gets three articles.
Homework: Students will write headlines and introductions for all the feature articles.

Day 4
Discussion of the homework. The best headlines and introductions will be chosen. The teacher will discuss all the personal articles with students individually. During this time the other students will work on the features (rewriting, adding new information), taking into account all the comments that have been made about them.

Day 5
The whole day will be used for rewriting personal articles and features. NB: To avoid disappointment, all the articles from the different groups should be printed in the magazine. If the quality of an article is inferior, the students should repeatedly be asked to improve it.
Week 10

Homework: The different working groups will be asked to obtain information on a local and/or national newspaper/radio station/television station. The aim is to make a portrait as part of the lessons. The portrait will mention the style of the newspaper, the language used, the commentaries, format, topics, photos and illustrations and the front page of the newspaper. Also important are the commercial aspects, sources of income from readers and advertisements. Besides visits to the library, students should visit the newspaper they are portraying and talk to members of the editorial staff. All the students will discuss the results.

Day 1
Experienced local journalists who have been given the articles beforehand will be invited. They will be asked to analyze and criticize the stories on sources, style, ethics and legal content. In the afternoon all the comments on the articles will be discussed in plenary session. During this session the teacher will add his own comments on all the features.
Afterwards, there will be a discussion on the hierarchy in material.

Day 2
Rewriting of the stories following the comments of the outside journalists and the final comments of the teacher.

Day 3
Students will be sent to the secretarial departments of newspapers to gather information on the possibilities for making the newspaper they want to make.

Day 4
Final decision on the classification of the magazine. Discussion in the different editorial groups.

Day 5
Final decision about the layout.
A detailed list containing all the subjects of articles, photos and illustrations should be available.

Week 11

Homework: The different working groups will be asked to find a niche in the market. They will work in a kind of contest. First, they must answer the question about the target group: what kind of readers are they preparing the newspaper for?
As homework they must develop a formula. Afterwards, the teacher will give a lesson on this homework and set another homework assignment, namely to think about the name of the newspaper. The next day the working groups must think about the financial possibilities. An expert in economics will be invited to give a guest lecture. A discussion will follow. Questions will be raised about circulation, distribution, equipment, accommodation, design.

Day 1
Invitation to a photographer who has received all the articles beforehand. Lecture by or discussion with the photographer about the role of pictures in a newspaper in general.

Day 2
Invitation to a designer and discussion about the significance of the layout for a newspaper/magazine.

Day 3
Organising the pictures: students will cooperate with the photographer who will take the photos. Only if students succeed in taking brilliant pictures will the photos be used for the newspaper.

Day 4
Preparation of final details: colophon with all the names of the students and teachers, divided into the different editorial groups. Preparation of a special text for the front page of the newspaper.

Example: This magazine is a publication of the Faculty of Journalism of the University of ….(name). The magazine has been produced by students who participated in a journalism course during the ….(1996-1997) academic year. Since (….year), the University of ….(name) has had a special curriculum in journalism, prepared in cooperation with the Management & Media Academy in the Netherlands. This magazine has been produced with the assistance of local journalists, photographers and designers. (We would like to give special mention to …(name of company), which provided financial support for the production of the magazine.) The annual curriculum is the responsibility of …(name of professor, dean).

Day 5
Organising the presentation in the last week.
Invitation to all the people who were involved in producing the newspaper: students, teachers, journalists, photographers, people who have been interviewed, special guests, local reporters.

Week 12

Day 1
Final corrections, printing of the magazine, excursion to the printing house.

Day 2
Editorial meeting, discussion of the result, discussion about distribution: who will the newspaper be sent to?

Day 3
Preparation of a list containing the names of all the students who passed the course. The list can be sent out either as an advertisement to the local newspaper or as an editorial report.

Day 4
Final preparation for the presentation; telephone calls to the guests who have been invited so you know they are really coming.

Day 5
Presentation of the magazine and the certificate.

Appendix 1 to the teacher’s manual:
The representatives of the Faculties of Philology and Journalism of the universities of Almaty (Kazakhstan), Krasnodar, Moscow, Novgorod, Volgograd and Yaroslavl who attended the seminar ‘Training of Journalism Lecturers’ in Moscow in the period June 17-July 6, 1996 have decided to build a network for mutual help and support. They do not want to see themselves as competitors, so they will exchange results to learn from each other’s mistakes. They also want to exchange ideas, textbooks, methods and all other common subjects of information. They will send each other their newspapers. They intend to meet again in the next course year to discuss the results. All the faculties intend to start the new course in journalism, based on the teacher’s manual developed in Moscow, in September 1996 or early 1997. Some problems need to be solved. How do they keep in touch with each other. Internet? Modem? Fax? At present, only the rector has access to Internet at most universities. How can the faculties of journalism be provided with a system of their own? The faculties will try to find money at their own universities and from local sponsors. They are also looking for financial support from outside. To ensure regular contact with each other, the faculties need a coordination point. In a way, Irina Ratmir can assume that role. Lilya Viltchek, professor at the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, also offered to coordinate. The faculty in Moscow will soon establish relations with the faculty in Yaroslavl.
All the faculties stated that they want to remain in contact with the Management & Media Academy in the Netherlands. They also wish to remain in contact with lecturers from the Netherlands. In the next few years in particular they will need their time and attention to keep the course going. The seminar in Moscow was only a beginning said the representatives of the faculties. They need permanent attention.

To distinguish themselves, the faculties of journalism of the universities of Yaroslavl, Krasnodar, Almaty, Volgograd and Novgorod would like to have a certificate of their own design. The Management & Media Academy will be asked to cooperate in producing a certificate that can be used for all the universities. Questions about who will sign the certificates need to be solved by the Management & Media Academy and the universities in Russia.

Appendix 2 – Ethical cases

Appendix 3 – All the faculties very much embrace the idea of developing a CD-ROM based on ‘The Universal Journalist’.
They all see this as the path to ‘entering the 21st century’. Besides this, CD-ROM also provides the possibility for teaching students languages. A CD-ROM does not require the constant presence of the teacher. At present, the teacher can devote attention to a group of not more than five students, the others have to find their own way. CD-ROM will individualize the process of learning. It provides the opportunity for integrating the Russian situation into a western one. “We don’t need a Dutch or western type of journalism, we need a mixture and the CD-ROM will help us,” the representatives of the faculties say.
“CD-ROM makes teaching and learning a pleasure,” said a professor. During the demonstration of the demo in Moscow, it turned out that the computers need a more powerful memory to play the CD-ROM. Therefore, as the CD-ROM is introduced, the computers at the different faculties will need to be provided with additional memory.

Appendix 4 – The Russian faculties badly need textbooks on journalism in general. They need practical manuals for interviews, reportages, reporting, essays and features.
They would also very much like to be provided with textbooks on management and economics in journalism, layout, how to start a newspaper, and so on.

Prepared in Moscow by Rudie van Meurs and Kees Schaepman, September 1998 / POLDERPERS.NL