Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 14
"If you ever write something really good and get really lucky, you might just get nominated for an award. Most of these awards are completely useless, of course. It's like an actor winning a Kid's Choice Award or a singer winning a Grammy: big deal, nobody cares. But there's one award that can actually make a journalist proud: the Pulitzer Prize. It's given to people who've achieved greatness in journalism, literature, and music every year. Guess which one we're focusing on."
"As a journalist, you can win a Pulitzer in one of fourteen categories, including - and you'd better be writing this down - Public Service, Breaking News Reporting, Investigative Reporting, Explanatory Reporting, Local Reporting, National Reporting, International Reporting, Feature Writing, Commentary, Criticism, Editorial Writing, Editorial Cartooning, Breaking News Photography, and Feature Photography. A lot of these are self explanatory. If you can't figure out what exactly an award for Breaking News Reporting is, you should give up now."
"But there are some that you probably need explained. Let's start with Explanatory Reporting. That's where you take a specific issue - stories on the Hubble Space Telescope, air traffic control, stem cell research, and Yemen have each one on the past - and just explain the hell out of it so that readers can actually be informed for once. Feature Writing is usually some sob story about how somebody was wronged and is looking for revenge in the form of a job and/or money. In theory it could be about pretty much any major story, though. Commentary tends to be a series of articles that harp on a certain subject, informing the public about it and raising the subject's profile. This usually ends up being a government expose of some sort. Editorial writing is less about informing and more about swaying opinion. Editorial cartooning is the same thing but with pictures."
"But the grand prize of the night is the Public Service award, which is awarded to newspapers instead of individuals. A paper will earn this award through overall excellence, often led by a specific series of articles by specific people."
"Next week is your final. Each of you is going to pick one of the individual categories to work in. Here's how it's going to work. Pick your category, figure out what you're going to write about, prepare to the best of your abilities before next Thursday, come here and write. The breaking news reporting and photography have to focus on something that happens next Thursday before class starts, so you better find something interesting between waking up and coming here or you're screwed. The people who choose photography have it easy during the final since they should have their pictures taken before class, but it's up to you to supply a digital camera so you can submit the picture to me first thing when class starts. And they still have to sit here while everyone else does real work. If you disrupt anyone working on an article, that's a letter grade off. If you fall asleep while you're waiting, that's a letter grade off. And I may call on you and give you a photo assignment that you need to complete during class or you fail. Keep that in mind."
"After it's all said and done, I'll assemble the articles into a newspaper, distribute it among the group, and let you know if any of the articles are worth winning a class Pulitzer. If you have any questions, ask them now."
[OOC: Sign up in the OCD. If you don't pick something, I'll grab one of the remaining categories for you and let you know. If you want to actually write an article in your chosen category on a subject of your choice, it should be about 200-400 words long and will be included in a Journalism Class Finals Edition newspaper. If you'd rather handwave, I'll still need a headline for your article so that the newspaper can direct people to a handwavey page "2D" or something. If you want to find or photoshop a picture for the photography categories, that would be love.
Please don't pick the photography categories unless you'll be game for running around in a different post next Thursday because you WILL get another photo assignment to keep you busy.]
"As a journalist, you can win a Pulitzer in one of fourteen categories, including - and you'd better be writing this down - Public Service, Breaking News Reporting, Investigative Reporting, Explanatory Reporting, Local Reporting, National Reporting, International Reporting, Feature Writing, Commentary, Criticism, Editorial Writing, Editorial Cartooning, Breaking News Photography, and Feature Photography. A lot of these are self explanatory. If you can't figure out what exactly an award for Breaking News Reporting is, you should give up now."
"But there are some that you probably need explained. Let's start with Explanatory Reporting. That's where you take a specific issue - stories on the Hubble Space Telescope, air traffic control, stem cell research, and Yemen have each one on the past - and just explain the hell out of it so that readers can actually be informed for once. Feature Writing is usually some sob story about how somebody was wronged and is looking for revenge in the form of a job and/or money. In theory it could be about pretty much any major story, though. Commentary tends to be a series of articles that harp on a certain subject, informing the public about it and raising the subject's profile. This usually ends up being a government expose of some sort. Editorial writing is less about informing and more about swaying opinion. Editorial cartooning is the same thing but with pictures."
"But the grand prize of the night is the Public Service award, which is awarded to newspapers instead of individuals. A paper will earn this award through overall excellence, often led by a specific series of articles by specific people."
"Next week is your final. Each of you is going to pick one of the individual categories to work in. Here's how it's going to work. Pick your category, figure out what you're going to write about, prepare to the best of your abilities before next Thursday, come here and write. The breaking news reporting and photography have to focus on something that happens next Thursday before class starts, so you better find something interesting between waking up and coming here or you're screwed. The people who choose photography have it easy during the final since they should have their pictures taken before class, but it's up to you to supply a digital camera so you can submit the picture to me first thing when class starts. And they still have to sit here while everyone else does real work. If you disrupt anyone working on an article, that's a letter grade off. If you fall asleep while you're waiting, that's a letter grade off. And I may call on you and give you a photo assignment that you need to complete during class or you fail. Keep that in mind."
"After it's all said and done, I'll assemble the articles into a newspaper, distribute it among the group, and let you know if any of the articles are worth winning a class Pulitzer. If you have any questions, ask them now."
[OOC: Sign up in the OCD. If you don't pick something, I'll grab one of the remaining categories for you and let you know. If you want to actually write an article in your chosen category on a subject of your choice, it should be about 200-400 words long and will be included in a Journalism Class Finals Edition newspaper. If you'd rather handwave, I'll still need a headline for your article so that the newspaper can direct people to a handwavey page "2D" or something. If you want to find or photoshop a picture for the photography categories, that would be love.
Please don't pick the photography categories unless you'll be game for running around in a different post next Thursday because you WILL get another photo assignment to keep you busy.]