JOUR 652: Online Journalism, Summer 2007

   E-mail: charvey@jmail.umd.edu; phone: 301-405-6256 (office) or 301-314-2696 (Maryland Newsline lab) 

   Classes, Section 0101: MTuWThFri, 9:30 a.m. to 11:10 a.m., Room 3117 Journalism Building. Office hours: Immediately after class, or by appointment.

Goals: This is not a computer class or an art class. It's a journalism course in which we'll use computers and readings and discussions to learn about online news publishing. The class will include lectures on emerging media themes, such as Internet-spawned media partnerships and mergers; the business, ethical and legal implications of publishing online; the characteristics that distinguish news Web sites and their stories from their print and broadcast counterparts; guidelines for doing research on the Internet; and the impact of blogs and other citizen journalism on mainstream media. In addition, a core portion of the class will include hands-on assignments: Students will be introduced to basic html and to Web-editing, photo-editing and video or audio-editing tools. And they'll learn about site structuring and navigation, headline and link writing, and basic page layout, while building a multi-page biography (with photos). They'll also participate in a class blog and learn how to set up their own blogs. And they'll learn how to create .pdfs from Word files and burn text and photo files onto CDs. 

Prerequisites: JOUR 502, 503 or the equivalent. For journalism majors only.

Assignments/Tests: More detailed instructions on some assignments will be supplied in class by your instructor. Assignments are due at the start of each class, unless otherwise noted. Please follow Associated Press style for print on all assignments.

Grading: Each assignment will be graded for accuracy, meeting of deadlines, substance, presentation/navigation/links (for Web assignments), quality of writing (headlines, story blurbs, photo captions and other text), usability and style. Associate Press print stylebook rules and rules of grammar should be followed on every assignment. Factual errors will result in grade deductions, as noted on each assignment. Letter-grade deductions also will be taken for broken links, including for photos, and for navigation that doesn't work. All written and Web assignments are due at the start of class, unless specifically instructed otherwise. No excuses, other than the hospitalization of the student or the death of a member of the student's immediate family, will be accepted for late assignments. A full letter grade will be deducted for each day an assignment is late, except for the final paper, which will receive an F if turned in after deadline.

Standards, Ethics and Academic Integrity: Students are expected to adhere to the strictest journalistic and academic standards. For this class, you must do all work yourself, without collaboration with classmates or others, unless I tell you otherwise. Along with certain rights, students also have the responsibility to behave honorably in an academic environment. Academic dishonesty, including cheating, fabrication, facilitating academic dishonesty and plagiarism (including use of unauthorized photos, graphics, text or layout from the Web) will not be tolerated. Any abridgement of academic integrity standards will be referred directly to the campus judiciary. Confirmation of such incidents could result in the earning of an "XF" grade for the course and may result in more severe consequences, such as expulsion. Students who are uncertain as to what constitutes academic dishonesty should consult the university publication called "Code of Academic Integrity," administered by the Student Honor Council. This code sets standards for academic integrity at Maryland for all undergraduate and graduate students.  For more information on the code or the council, please visit http://www.studenthonorcouncil.umd.edu/whatis.html.
 

Books & Materials: We will be using a combination of required textbooks and handouts (printed and online) in this course:

• Richard Craig's "Online Journalism: Reporting, Writing and Editing for New Media"
• an Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual (for print). Please bring the stylebook to class with you to aid in lab work.
• Readings: This syllabus links to various required online reading assignments under the class schedule. In addition, because the field is changing so fast, you'll be expected to do additional reading to keep up. You should on a weekly basis read relevant stories and columns in the Online Journalism Review. 

Computer Access: JOUR 352 students may also access software for this class from Rooms 3102 and 3111 when classes are not in session.  

Students with Special Needs: Should talk to the instructor at the end of the first class. 

Class Schedule:

(The instructor reserves the right to make changes to the weekly schedule to fit the needs of the class and to accommodate guest speakers. All readings should be done before class meets, except for readings for the first class, which should be done before the second class. Please be sure to constantly check the Web site of this syllabus to check for any changes to the schedule.)

Week 1:

June 4: Course and syllabus overview and student introductions.

June 5: An overview of why newspapers are on the Web, and a bit about the unique features news Web sites offer readers--including personalization, multimedia, searchable databases, 24-hour updates, interactive chats and blogs and in-depth special reports. Plus: A brief history of the Internet.

Readings: Chapters 1 and 2 in the Craig book ("Why Is Online Journalism Different, and Why Should You Care," and "The Job of the Online Journalist");  "Fear.com" by Chip Brown in the June 1999 issue of American Journalism Review and  "Dot-com Still the Main Domain," from the May 6, 2002, issue of Wired News. .

June 6: Begin discussing search engines and directories, wikis and RSS feeds. Plus a tutorial and Web surfing exercise from John R. Henderson, a reference librarian at the Ithaca College Library. Please also e-mail yourself an electronic version of your resume in a Word doc format. I will show you how to create a .pdf from that file.

Readings: A Web research handout that I'll give you in class. Plus Chapter 4 in the Craig book ("Web Resources and Databases"). Plus: "A 10-Year Checkup: A Decade Into the E-Health Era, Online Medical Resources Pass a Real-Life Test," by Craig Stoltz, in the Aug. 1, 2006, Washington Post; "Non-traditional sources cloud Google News results," by Eric Ulken in the May 19, 2005, edition of Online Journalism Review; "RSS for journalists: Your own personal Web butler," by Jonathan Dube, in the Feb. 15, 2005, edition of PoynterOnline; "How to make Wikipedia better (and why we should)," by Ray Grieselhuber, in the Feb. 1, 2006, edition of Online Journalism Review; "Wikipedia: Teapot Tempest," by Wade Roush, in the Dec. 7, 2005, issue of Technology Review;" Collaborative Conundrum: Do Wikis Have a Place in the Newsroom?" by Mark Glaser in the Sept. 10, 2004, edition of OJR; 

June 7: Introduction to basic html, with a discussion of the skeletal coding needed to build every Internet page, plus font sizes and faces, bolding and italicizing, making paragraphs and page breaks, creating hyperlinks and e-mail links, and changing background, font and link colors. I'll also show you how to read "source code" on Web pages created by others. Please bring a printed or electronic copy of your resume to class, in a Word doc or .txt format. We'll work together, using this a basic html handout from Harvey as a guide.

Readings: "The Html Basics" from Webmonkey.com.

June 8: More on evaluating online information: Distinguishing between reliable sources and junk on the Web. You will be given a surfing exercise to complete for a class grade; it must be turned in by e-mail to me (as a double-spaced Word doc attachment) no later than 11:10 a.m.

Week 2:

June 11: More basic html: creating horizontal rules and bulleted lists, anchor (internal page) links and comment tags. Using html to create image source tags to add graphics and photos to a Web page.  Plus: a basic introduction to photo scanning. Please bring in at least one photo of yourself for possible use in your bio package; we will scan and size it.

Readings: "NPPA's Best of Photojournalism Web Site Contest 2006" and photos on "NPPA's Best of Photojournalism 2005." The ambitious among you may also want to click through photos and galleries on The Digital Journalist. I'll have photo scanning and photo shooting handouts for you in class.

June 12:  Sizing and cropping in PhotoShop, along with a basic discussion of shooting and selecting strong photos. Plus: Intermediate html:  An introduction to table building in html. Tables are used to create photo and caption boxes, to create modular page layouts and to build columns and rows for charts. I'll have a table-building handout for you in class.

June 13: Ethics, taste and restraint in new media. Just because a news organization can publish something doesn't mean it should. A look at how the speed of the 24-hour news cycle has affected news judgment; whether or not online sites are properly differentiating between editorial and advertising content; corrections and linking policies, and more. Plus: Legal issues in cyberspace. Among the legal questions to consider: Can news sites be held liable for comments posted on bulletin boards? Is it OK to copy source code from another site to mimic design? What about republishing someone else's text, photos and graphics? Can you get in trouble for forwarding a published story to a friend?

Readings on ethics: Chapters 14, 15 and 16 in the Craig book ("Online Standards Vs. Journalistic Standards"; "Legal Issues Online and Offline"; and "Ethics in Cyberland."); Tish Grier's "Can we all just learn to interact?" in the June 13, 2006, edition of OJR; Robert Niles' "Can Newspapers Do Blogs Right?" in the April 23, 2006, edition of OJR; Robert I. Berkman's "Is It Appropriate for Reporters to Lurk in Online Chat Rooms?" in the Feb. 2, 2004, issue of Online Journalism Review; Barb Palser's "Charting New Terrain" and Michael Oreskes' "Navigating a Minefield" in the November 1999 AJR; plus Matt Welch's "What If You Couldn't Trust the New York Times?" in the April 24, 1999, issue of OJR; and Howard Kurtz's "Dallas Paper's Story: A Scoop That Wasn't," in the Jan. 28, 1998, Washington Post. Readings on copyright: A handy online guide: "10 Big Myths about copyright explained," new-media publisher Brad Templeton's wise-guy analysis of a complicated subject. And "Search Me? Google Wants to Digitize Every Book. Publishers Say Read the Fine Print First," by Bob Thompson, in the Aug. 13, 2006, Washington Post; "Copyright Issues Present Ongoing Dilemma: To Link or Not To Link? by Robert I. Berkman, in the Oct. 1, 2003, edition of Online Journalism Review. Readings on Credibility issues: Aly Colon's "Putting Old Values to Work with New Tools," in the Dec. 12, 2003, edition of poynter.org; and Chris Harvey's "Journalists Are Still Wary of Online News," in the December 2001 issue of AJR.   

Assignment: Due at the beginning of class June 13: Turn in to the x drive a one-page resume, with text, subheads, internal (anchor) links, an e-mail address link, at least one external hyperlink and at least one bulleted list. Background colors are optional, as are changed link colors. Each factual mistake (such as a misspelled proper name) will result in one letter-grade deduction, as will each broken link. Unreadable resumes (because of bad color choices for fonts or backgrounds) will result in an automatic F. Resumes should follow AP style for print throughout, and be readable on-screen and as printouts. Resumes will lose one letter grade for each day that they're late.

June 14: Complete an ethics assignment in class, which will count as an in-class grade.

Readings: Chapter 11 in the Craig book, ("The Online Editor/Utility Infielder.") Dreamweaver: Getting Down to Basics, More on Tables, and Creating Links in Dreamweaver; tutorials from Internet4Classrooms.

Week 3:

June 18: Writing succinctly and conversationally for the Web, session I: Narrative nonfiction. I will give you handouts of several nonfiction narratives written by other students. We'll read and discuss them, then you will begin roughing out the text for a personal, nonfiction essay for your bio package. You'll turn it in to me by the start of next class. Your essay should be 300-700 words and should be on a topic that reveals something about your background or character: A relative or teacher who had a great impact on you; an incident that came as a turning point in your life; an anecdote about why you ended up in journalism heading toward a career as a writer. Please try to avoid being too negative or flip; this is intended to be the opening narrative on the home page of your biography package. Potential employers may be reading it. The essay will count as an in-class grade; it will be edited and returned to you for a write-through for inclusion in your bio package.

Readings: Chapters 6, 7 and 8 in the Craig book ("Online Writing Styles"; "Hooking and Keeping Readers"; Revving Up Your Writing"). Plus Judith Silverstein Gray's "Turning Personal Experience Into Narrative"; Walt Harrington's "How Memories Become Memoirs"; and Poynter.org's Chip Scanlan on "Writing the Personal Essay" and "Tips for Writing a Personal Essay."

June 19: Begin discussing online design and navigation issues and the importance of folder structure to Web building and Web addresses. You'll be asked to sketch out (or storyboard) the page layouts for each of your bio packages. These hand-drawn sketches will show where your navigation bar will go on each page and where photos, headlines and stories or other text will go. Navigation must be consistent on all pages. Also, in a Word document, you'll type a brief description of the content and art that will go on each page; be explicit about the background/banner/text color schemes you will use to tie the pages together, along with the font styles and sizes for headlines, photo captions and text. If you're going to change link colors, please note that, too. This will count as an in-class grade; turn in by start of next class. We'll review Web design tips in class.

Readings: Chapters 13 in the Craig book ("Basic Online Layout"). Plus: Webmonkey's "The Foundation of Web Design" and "Information Architecture Tutorial"; and "Surfing the Web for Design Lessons," by Anne Van Wagener, for PoynterOnline, Jan. 31, 2005, edition. Plus: Webmonkey's tutorials on site design; Dan Farber's "Eye tracking Web usability" on ZDNet's "Between the Lines," March 27, 2006; and Edward C. Baig's "Survey Offers a 'Sneak Peak' Into Web Surfers' Brains," on USA Today March 26, 2006.

June 21: MIDTERM

June 22: We'll go over a bio package checklist. We'll also go over the basics of adding audio and video links to Web pages.

Week 4:

June 25: I'll show you how to do a screen grab to add a graphic to a page. Then we'll discuss different storytelling structures that work on the Web--including nonlinear ones such as photo galleries and interactive ones such as news quizzes and chats.  

Readings: Chapter 12 in the Craig book, ("Multimedia for News"). Please also read Jonathan Dube's page on "Online Storytelling Forms," on CyberJournalist.net. Please spend some time reviewing packages on "InteractiveNarratives." Plus: Mindy McAdams' "Flash Journalism: Professional Practice Today," published on OJR on Sept. 22, 2005; and Elizabeth A. Ferris' "Rethinking the Multimedia Experience," published on Poynteronline on Nov. 16, 2005.

June 26: Begin discussing/working on headline writing for the Web.  Before the start of our class June 27, please find a good and not-so-adept headline on one or more news Web sites, and explain diplomatically why you think so on this class discussion blog: http://online-journalism-for-beginners.blogspot.com/. Please be sure to give the full URL and headline for each. Please don't write anything you don't want the world to see.

Readings: Check out these headline writing tips from John Schlander, Joel Pisetzner and Wayne Countryman on www.copydesk.org. Plus: Harvey's Writing for the Web handout.

June 27:  We'll review your headline analyses on the blog; I'll allow time to answer questions on your bio packages.

June 28: More discussion and work on headlines; we'll review Tuesday's in-class assignment.

Readings: Jeff South's "No Secrets" in the April 2000 issue of AJR.

July 3: We'll begin a discussion of the proliferation of Web logs (or blogs), and their impact on emerging democracies in other countries and on politics and mainstream journalism in the United States.  We'll also discuss the impact of citizen journalists and podcasts on mainstream media.

Readings: Yuki Noguchi's "Kids Say the Darndest Things in Their Blogs; For Parents, It Can Be Embarrassing," in the Aug. 22, 2006, Washington Post; Nico Mcdonald's "Comment Is Free, But Designing Communities Is Hard," in the Aug. 17, 2006, edition of OJR; Mark Glaser's NOLA.com blogs and forums help save lives after Katrina, in the Sept. 13, 2005, edition of OJR; Barb Palser's "Journalism's Backseat Drivers," in the August/September 2005 issue of AJR; Plus: Plus: Mark Glaser's "Flickr, Buzznet Expand Citizens' Role in Visual Journalism," in the Nov. 15, 2005 edition of OJR; J.D. Lasica's "Citizen's Media Gets Richer," in the Sept. 7, 2005, edition of OJR;  Mark Glaser's "Bloggers, Citizen's Media and Rather's Fall: Little People Rise Up in 2004," in the Dec. 21, 2004, edition of OJR; and Mark Glaser's "Will Satellite, 'Podcasting' Bring a Renaissance to Radio Journalism?" in the Oct., 12, 2004, edition of OJR. Plus: Rachel Smolkin's "The Expanding Blogosphere," in the June/July 2004 issue of AJR; Aly Colon's "Blogs and Ethics" in the April 22, 2004, edition of Poynteronline. Plus J.D. Lasica's "When Bloggers Commit Journalism," in OJR's Sept. 24, 2002, issue;  Catherine Seipp's "Online Uprising," in the June 2002 issue of AJR; Staci D. Kramer's "The Perfect News Incubator" in the Dec. 18, 2002, issue of OJR. See also photoblogs.org and blog tracking sites Technorati and The Truth Laid Bare.

July 4: UMD Holiday. No class.

July 5: We'll have class electronically today; we will not meet in the lab. I'll post an assignment about blogging to our class blog; you must complete your assignment by the end of class today (11:10 a.m.).

July 6: We'll have a discussion of and a hand's-on example of using story templates and production tools to build stories and packages on news Web sites. (You won't be building story pages from scratch when you're hired as a producer or editor at a news Web site, but you will be expected to understand basic html and how packages are built and structured.) We'll also discuss link and caption writing.