Taking the next steps on your research paper

Your research papers will be due on April 24, which is just a few weeks from now. Recently I posted guidelines. By this point you should have a clear topic in mind and have started work on your research.

Before our next class, please write a memo/summary on what your paper will be about. Your memo should be about 200 to 300 words long, but you can certainly write more. I’m looking to see that you have thought this through, and I’m looking for enough information so that I can provide you with feedback and recommendations. Identify at least some of the primary and secondary sources you intend to use.

I have deliberately kept the assignment open-ended, but you are writing a substantial research paper at the graduate level. That means you need to offer a mix of primary and secondary sources. For instance, let’s say you decide to examine how The New York Times and The Washington Post covered President Trump’s inaugural address. In addition to offering your own close analysis of what those two papers actually published (primary sources), you would want to supplement that with material providing us with information on the two papers from a variety of secondary sources; perhaps a non-Times, non-Post source on what Trump was trying to accomplish with that speech; whether the two papers’ coverage of Trump’s speech was in accordance with the principles laid out by Kovach and Rosenstiel, and the like.

You may want to bolster your research by interviewing experts as well, although that is not a requirement. If you choose, you may write a purely academic paper with no interviews.

Send your memo to me by email in the form of a Microsoft Word document.

Getting ready for next week’s guest speaker

Callie Crossley

Our next guest speaker will be Callie Crossley of WGBH News, who will join us next Wednesday to talk about diversity in the newsroom and in news coverage. Crossley is a panelist on “Beat the Press” and “Basic Black” on WGBH-TV (Channel 2), the host of “Under the Radar” on WGBH Radio (89.7 FM) and an essayist for WGBHNews.org.

I have posted an assignment (or at least I will in a few minutes) on Facebook asking you to listen to at least one segment of “Under the Radar” and write a reflection on it. It will be due by next Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Your review of Anthony Lewis’ ‘Freedom for the Thought That We Hate”

Your third and final book review of the semester is due next Wednesday, March 22, at 10 a.m. Please write a 500- to 800-word review of Anthony Lewis’ “Freedom for the Thought That We Hate.” Lewis surveys the rise of the First Amendment from the vague language of the Constitution — “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” — to the strong press protections that we enjoy today.

Although Lewis is a gifted writer, he deals with a difficult subject, especially if you are new to American media law. I recently wrote a column on Lewis’ book for WGBH News, and I hope you will find it useful in understanding what Lewis is writing about. Bonus: WGBH had to run a correction because of a boneheaded mistake I made, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy.

As always, I would like you to write this in the form of a review that we might read in a newspaper or on a website. You will be graded on the strength of your argument, the quality of your writing and your attention to detail. Among other things, I would like you to think about one broad area of First Amendment law that Lewis describes that you wish had turned out differently. Some guidelines:

• Make sure you meet the deadline.
• Spell all proper names correctly. One of my goals for this assignment is not to have to reduce anyone’s grade for improper spelling of names. Double-check. If this were for publication, you would be expected to get it right, and you would not be able to count on a copy editor to catch mistakes.
• Write an enticing headline with an eye toward publication.
• As with any piece of journalistic writing, aim for a strong lede that hooks the reader right away. Always keep in mind that you are writing for an audience.
• Try to follow the AP style guidelines I posted recently. (Style note: You will find within the guidelines an admonition against the use of single quotation marks unless they are inside doubles. In case you were wondering about the headline on this post, headline style typically uses single quotes.)

Here are the book-review resources that I’ve posted each time: We all subscribe to The Washington Post, so be sure to take a look at its book section. You’ll want to concentrate on the nonfiction reviews. The New York Times offers extensive book coverage, including a standalone Sunday Book Review. The Boston Globe publishes good-quality book reviews, too.

Please write it as a Microsoft Word document and send it to me by email.

Your final project

For your final project, you will write a research paper on a topic of your choosing related to ethics in journalism. Your completed paper should be 2,500 to 3,000 words long.

You may select your topic and structure your paper however you see fit. The only rules are these:

• Find a recent topic that has generated plenty of news coverage. Avoid cases we have discussed extensively in class.
• Set forth a clear and specific argument.
• Back up your argument with examples from your research.
• Make sure your writing is polished and accurate, and that you proofread for errors.
• Be sure to provide proper and full attribution, linking to your source material when possible or citing it in the text if it is not online.

Choosing a topic: Start by figuring out what aspect of journalism ethics interests you. You may choose any of the areas we have explored in class or anything else that is relevant to the practice of ethical journalism. One way to get the gears moving would be to review “The Elements of Journalism.”

From there, narrow your focus and develop a particular angle by zeroing in on a specific ethics-related theme. If you are not sure whether your topic will work, please run it by me. Part of the assignment, though, is for you to define an angle. Do not expect me to hand you a topic.

Format: Emailed to me as a Microsoft Word file.

Deadline: Your paper must be sent to me by email by Monday, April 24, at 10 a.m. There will be checkpoints along the way. My plan is to schedule one-on-one meetings with all of you later in the semester to discuss your progress.

My attribution: This assignment, including much of the wording, is based on one developed by Professor Alan Schroeder.

Your review of Janet Malcolm’s ‘The Journalist and the Murderer’

Your second graded assignment of the semester is due next Wednesday, Feb. 22, at 10 a.m. Please write a 500- to 800-word review of Janet Malcolm’s “The Journalist and the Murderer.” As the syllabus says, take as your starting point Malcolm’s famous opening sentence: “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.” Do you agree or disagree? Support your argument with examples from her book, from Gene Weingarten’s article and from my review of the Errol Morris book.

As with your last review, I would like you to write this in the form of a review that we might read in a newspaper or on a website. As we have discussed, a review is different from academic report. You are providing a recommendation to your audience: Should they read this book or not? Thus you want to write it in a journalistic style. You will be graded on the strength of your argument, the quality of your writing and your attention to detail. Some guidelines:

• Make sure you meet the deadline.
• Spell all proper names correctly.
• Write an enticing headline with an eye toward publication.
• As with any piece of journalistic writing, aim for a strong lede that hooks the reader right away. Always keep in mind that you are writing for an audience.
• Try to follow the AP style guidelines I posted recently. (Style note: You will find within the guidelines an admonition against the use of single quotation marks unless they are inside doubles. In case you were wondering about the headline on this post, headline style typically uses single quotes.)

Here are the book-review resources that I posted the last time: We all subscribe to The Washington Post, so be sure to take a look at its book section. You’ll want to concentrate on the nonfiction reviews. The New York Times offers extensive book coverage, including a standalone Sunday Book Review. The Boston Globe publishes good-quality book reviews, too.

Please write it as a Microsoft Word document and send it to me by email.

Getting ready for Wednesday’s class: The MacDonald case, Hacks/Hackers and more

There will be a lot of moving parts to our class this Wednesday, Feb. 15. I ask that everyone show up on time and be aware of what we’re going to be doing so that we can use our time together as efficiently as possible.

• At 5:30 p.m. we’ll meet in our usual location, 148 Holmes. We will have a brief opening, some business and a presentation by Wen Lei.
• At 6:15 we will leave for 220 Shillman. We’re going to sit in on a meeting of Hacks/Hackers Boston sponsored by the School of Journalism and Google Play Newsstand. Speakers will deliver lightning talks on projects they’re working on. You can find out more by clicking here.
• The event is supposed to end at 7:30 or 8. We will return to 148 at that time and discuss the presentations — what we liked, what we didn’t.

What this means is that we won’t have a chance to discuss the MacDonald case and Janet Malcolm’s book. I think that’s all right. In your syllabus you will find two readings from two very different points of view: my review of Errol Morris’ “A Wilderness of Error” and Gene Weingarten’s profile of Brian Murtagh, who prosecuted MacDonald and maintains that he is guilty. I think you will find that those articles will give you a deeper understanding of what Malcolm is writing about.

You will also find the assignment for next Wednesday, Feb. 22, in the syllabus. I will post something more specific later, but please keep in mind the following guidelines: make deadline; make sure all proper names are spelled correctly; try to write a strong headline; and concentrate on making this a piece of journalistic writing, with a lede that grabs the reader. Write for an audience, not just for me.

Your review of ‘The Elements of Journalism’

Your first graded assignment of the semester is due next Wednesday, Feb. 1, at 10 a.m. Please write a 500- to 800-word review of Kovach and Rosenstiel’s “The Elements of Journalism.” As the syllabus says, you should summarize what you think are the key points in the book. Tell us what you agree with, what you disagree with and what you think Kovach and Rosenstiel left out.

I would like you to write this in the form of a review that we might read in a newspaper or on a website. A review is different from academic report. You are providing a recommendation to your audience: Should they read this book or not? Thus you want to write it in a journalistic style, with a strong lede, rather than in the stilted language of a class paper. Try to write an enticing headline to go along with it.

If you are not familiar with how to write a book review, you will want to take a look at some good ones. We all subscribe to The Washington Post, so be sure to take a look at its book section. You’ll want to concentrate on the nonfiction reviews. The New York Times offers extensive book coverage, including a standalone Sunday Book Review. The Boston Globe publishes good-quality book reviews, too.

Please write it as a Microsoft Word document and send it to me by email.

What should be the 11th element of journalism?

Before class next Wednesday, Jan. 25, please write a comment on Facebook regarding what additional element you would add to “The Elements of Journalism.” Explain your reasoning. The 10 that Kovach and Rosenstiel have come up with are pretty comprehensive, but strive to think of something that is clearly different from theirs. Again, I’m looking for somewhere between 100 and 300 words. Just write your comment beneath the post I’ve written.

Your reaction to Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron’s 2015 speech

I have posted the details of this brief assignment at our Facebook group. Now that everyone has joined, I’ve changed the settings to “secret.” We will all be able to see what each other is writing, but the group will have no visibility to anyone else. If you want to watch the speech again, or if you were not in class to see it, you will find a link under Week 1 in the syllabus.