A young throw-back journalist tackling the news biz
Changing journalism
Online Journalism 101 — An ideal class
I’
m taking an online journalism class with the supremely talented Ryan Thornburg, but I’ve been a tad frustrated by the types of things we’re covering — I wish they were a little more advanced. Here’s a mock syllabus for the ideal online journalism class in my mind. It would be required for a journalism degree.
Prerequisites:
- News writing, News reporting
- A working knowledge of WordPress blogging (or equivalent), RSS feeds, wikis, FTP clients, Twitter, audio/video shooting and editing.
An ideal news writing course, the basis of a journalism degree, would introduce the topics outlined in the second bullet point. I want this course to go into how reporters can maximize these skills.
Course Overview
This class will give students a real-world application for new media technologies within a news organization. Students will be expected to seek out new uses for technologies and increase their skills by trial and error. Each student will maintain a blog, on a topic the student is passionate about, with a mixture of static and updated pages on which he or she can experiment with different applications.
Each week, students will be expected to give a 2-minute presentation showing how they used the skills discussed in the previous class on their blog.
Class Schedule
Week 1: Introduction to Online Journalism and the online news reader. How can reporters put themselves where readers are?
Read: “A New Model for News,” AP.
Week 2: Breaking news on the Web. Best practices for Twitter and how to optimize newspaper home pages to push rapidly updating content.
Read: “Campaign Reporting in Under 140 Taps,” NYT. “Twitter changing the face of news,” RMN. “Twitter helps with reporting, filtering the news,” MediaShift.
Week 3: Using online reporting tools to augment stories. Embedable web application overview and practice.
Read: “Online Tools for Reporting,” Dunn.
Week 4: Best practices in online video. What makes a good newspaper Web site video. Video conference with Al Tompkins of Poynter.
Read: “Tips for shooting better online video,” OJR.
Week 5: Introduction to content management systems. How to create and manage a stand-alone site. Tour of WordPress, Plone, Expression Engine and Drupal.
Assignment: Write a concise summary of a CMS and a brief how-to on getting started.
Week 6: Programming for journalists. How learning Python and Django can help you, and how to get your feet wet. Video conference with Matt Waite.
Assignment: Find a Web application on tampabay.com or washingtonpost.com and analyze how it was built.
…………….
The final project would be a comprehensive analysis of a newspaper’s online strategy, discussing the good and the bad aspects of their Web site. Students would be expected to interview the managing editor for the site.
I know there’s more that could be done with this class. What do you think should be added?
Discussion
3 comments for “Online Journalism 101 — An ideal class”
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© 2008 dunn, reporter. 
[...] Also, check out this good resource guide on online journalism skills and what an ideal journalism course might look like. [...]
Ready to argue with the themes of education-all. All the same, you can very well write about it
cool you saytik! Write more!