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584-342: TELEVISION NEWS REPORTING Spring 2014
Sec. 801 10:00 am – 12:50 pm M/F
Lecturer Mark Zoromski
129 Johnston Hall
Office Hours: Tuesdays 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Thursdays 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Phone Numbers:
Office:414-229-6269
Dept. Office:414-229-4436
Home:262-375-4065 (think first, think twice before calling after 10pm)
Cell:414-403-9994
EMAIL:
DESCRIPTION:
This course is designed to teach you the fundamentals of television news reporting. To take this class, you must be a declared major or minor in the Department of Journalism, Advertising and Media Studies and have successfully completed JAMS 320 (Integrated Reporting) with a grade of C or better. If you do not meet those prerequisites, you can’t be in this class.
This class presumes you have already developed news reporting and writing skills. We’ll add to those skills this semester, learning how to report, shoot and light, conceptualize, script, and edit television news packages.
To become a beginning television journalist, you must learn the core skills of interviewing, visual composition, use of sound, and good writing. In short, you must know how to weave words, pictures and sound together in a factual, compelling, and interesting manner. Our focus will be on television news reporting, but to become good television news reporters we must learn technical skills as well as solid journalistic skills. Although you will learn to use a wide range of complicated equipment to do your job well, we need to remain focused on our goal of learning how to be good television news reporters.
We’ll use our newly acquired skills to produce UWM PantherVision, a weekly half-hour television newscast that can be seen in about 300,000 homes across Southeastern Wisconsin. Our newscast is also available on demand to Time Warner digital cable subscribers from the Illinois border to Upper Michigan, as well as on PAWS TV3, the Broadcast Club @ UWM’s campus cable channel. You’ll get the chance to anchor and report for the newscast. You’ll find more about PantherVision later in this syllabus.
GRADING:
You will be graded on your overall skills as a television news reporters, as measured by your news packages. Each student will produce a minimum of three news packages as a reporter, and three as a photojournalist. The actual distribution of opportunities depends on enrollment.
Your overall grade will be determined as follows:
•Performance on reporting, photojournalism, and editing:60 percent
•Grades on test, news quizzes20 percent
•Lecture attendance, class participation, storynotes20 percent
Performance:
Your performance grades will be based on the following four categories:
•Reporting: Range of sources, quality of interviews and preparation, factual accuracy, focus of the story, depth of information presented, level of story difficulty, and meeting deadlines.
•Packaging: overall flow of the story, quality of storytelling, pacing, use of natural sound, compelling use of video, soundbite selection, and editing.
•Photojournalism: technical quality of video (white balance, focus, use of tripod), framing, creativity of shots, use of motivated camera movement, audio quality.
•Writing: grammar, spelling, writing style, correct use of broadcast writing and format (including production cues). Keep a copy of the AP Style Book handy when you write, because you will be held to these standards.
Each area will be evaluated separately, on a 25 point scale, and the grades will then be added together to produce an overall grade for the story. This allows you to get credit for strength in one area, even if you are weaker in another. Your package grades are team grades; both the reporter and the photojournalist get the same grades. Both members of the team have a common interest in making sure the other does his/her job well.
The broadcast journalism world revolves around extreme and exacting deadlines. You are expected to meet the deadlines in this class; failure to do so will result in a score of zero on that project.
Tests and News Quizzes:
There will be a final exam, which will cover all of the reading material, lectures and labs. The questions will test your knowledge of television news style, formats, narrative structures, writing and grammar styles, equipment techniques, and television reporting techniques.
We will also have news quizzes throughout the semester. It is up to you to read the papers and watch television newscasts. The quiz content can cover campus, local, state, national and international news events.
Lecture attendance, class participation, storynotes:
Attendance and participation grades will be kept for each class session. Since our lectures will include material not covered in the textbooks, it is critical that you attend class.
Story ideas are one of the keys to your success in this class and in any television newsroom. You will be responsible for submitting storynotes, which are researched story ideas. Your story ideas will be evaluated as they are in working newsrooms - are they interesting or important enough to deserve air time? Can the information be told in a manner that is pertinent and relevant to our viewers?
Focus your storynotes on "enterprise stories." Taking ideas out of the newspaper or off a competitor’s newscast simply isn't good enough. Good storynotes lead to good stories, which lead to good grades and good jobs. Be prepared to pitch your story ideas during our story meetings. Unless you pitch it, there is no guarantee that you will be assigned that story.
COURSE ORGANIZATION:
There will be two parts to our semester. We'll spend about four weeks in "boot-camp," learning the skills of good television reporting and journalistic skills such as television interviewing, narrative structures, writing, and storytelling. We'll also learn the technical aspects of television reporting - how to work the cameras, lights, tripods, and edit bays.
For the remainder of the semester, we become a television newsroom and begin producing our own television newscast, called UWM PantherVision. PantherVision is produced through a unique partnership between the Department of Journalism, Advertising and Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Television and Video Production Department at the Milwaukee Area Technical College. The collaborative effort is designed as a real-life learning opportunity for those students from both institutions.
We tape the newscast in the studios of Channels 10/36 on Mondays, but the bulk of your work will be done during the week and on Fridays. Each Friday, we'll have a story meeting, going through your story ideas and assigning what stories we will cover for the following week. We'll also hold a critique session for the previous week's newscast. All this takes place as the newscast producers (students in JAMS 544) produce the following Monday’s newscast.
All stories will be due on Thursday nights at 11:00 pm.
Our newscast airs on a variety of venues. It airs three times a week (Wednesdays and Fridays at 5:00 pm, and Saturdays at 11:30 am) on Time Warner cable channel 14 in the city, as well as AT&T U-verse channel 99. UWM PantherVision is also accessible through Time Warner’s Wisconsin on Demand (WioD), which is available on Time Warner digital channel 411. We also air it daily on campus cable channel 3.
TIME INVESTMENT:
To achieve the learning outcomes of this 3-credit course, an average student should expect to invest about 160 hours over the course of the semester. We’ll spend about 50 hours in class, and until March 4th, you’ll have very little coursework outside the classroom (perhaps 1 hour of reading per week, for 5 hours total). Once we begin our newscasts, though, expect to spend about 15 hours a week working on your news stories.
EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES:
We will be using expensive equipment in this class. You must sign an equipment agreement that specifies that you are financially responsible for damage to the equipment or lost/stolen parts.
We use a professional digital tape format called DVCam in our cameras and television editing lab. Because such tapes are not available at consumer electronics stores, each of you will receive 3 new DVCam tapes for field acquisition, paid for from the lab fee that accompanies registration for this class. If you’re interested in purchasing more tapes (you may want to save the video you shoot so that you can re-edit stories after the semester is over for your resume tape), I’ve made arrangements to allow you to purchase them from the JAMS office. Please see me for more information.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Sequences: Strategies for Shooting News in the Real World, John Hewitt. (distributed first day of class)
The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, Associated Press.
RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
The Elements of Style, Strunk and White.
SEMESTER OUTLINE:
The projected outline of the semester can be found later in this syllabus. The schedule, and this syllabus, are subject to change if warranted according to the instructor’s judgment and for the benefit of the class.
POLICIES:
1. Students with disabilities: If you will need accommodations in order to meet any of the requirements of this course, please contact the instructor as soon as possible.
2. Religious observances: Students will be permitted to make up assignments when (a) There is a scheduling conflict between the student's sincerely held religious beliefs and taking the examination or meeting the academic requirements; and (b) The student has notified the instructor, within the first three weeks of the beginning of classes of the specific days or dates on which he or she will request relief from an examination or academic requirement.
3. Incompletes: A notation of "incomplete" may be given in lieu of a final grade to a student who has carried a subject successfully until the end of a semester but who, because of illness or other unusual and substantiated cause beyond the student' s control, has been unable to take or complete the final examination or to complete some limited amount of term work.
4. Discriminatory conduct (such as sexual harassment): The University will not tolerate discriminatory conduct. It poisons the work and learning environment of the University and threatens the careers, educational experience, and well -being of students, faculty, and staff.
5. Academic misconduct: Cheating on exams or plagiarism are violations of the academic honor code and carry severe sanctions, including failing a course or even suspension or dismissal from the University.
For more information about UWM academic policies, see: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SecU/SyllabusLinks.pdf
UWM PantherVision
A learning opportunity through
partnership between UWM and MATC
UWM PantherVision is a weekly half-hour television newscast produced through a unique partnership between the Department of Journalism, Advertising and Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Television and Video Production Department at the Milwaukee Area Technical College. The collaborative effort is designed as a real-life learning opportunity for those studying to be television journalists (UWM students) and those studying for careers in television production (MATC students).
Every aspect of PantherVision is designed to be a learning experience. Broadcast journalism students at UWM, under the direction of their instructor, are responsible for all editorial aspects such as reporting, writing, and producing. Second year television and video production students at MATC are responsible for all studio production of the newscast, such as directing, technical directing, audio, studio camera operation and floor directing. The educational goal of PantherVision is to provide students from both institutions with practical experience in their field of study.
About your student partners at MATC
The MATC students working on PantherVision are all majors in the television and video production program at MATC. Their work is part of a second-year class designed to teach students advanced television production, including directing, technical directing, digital editing, field camera/lighting operation, character generator operation, audio, studio lighting, and set design. Students have the opportunity to be reporters for our newscast, but the primary emphasis of the class is on the production aspect of the television business.
The bulk of the PantherVision workload for MATC students comes on Mondays. The students arrive in the studio at 8:00 am to prepare for the newscast. The director reviews scripts and marks instructions to give to the technical director. The technical director sets up the switcher and coordinates pre-production tasks such as storing weather and other graphics. The audio operator sets up and tests all microphones and the audio board. The character generator operation loads all lower third and full screen graphics, and the teleprompter operator loads the scripts into the system. Studio technicians set up and light the news set, and the video engineer reviews our tapes, charts the cameras, and prepares for recording. The entire pre-production process takes about two hectic and labor-intensive hours. It is important that we do everything in our power to facilitate smooth production of the newscast and adhere to the production schedule.
About your student partners from JAMS 544
Students from JAMS 544, Television News Management, also learn by participating in PantherVision.
544 designed to teach students about managing newsrooms and producing newscasts. The 544 students have already completed 342, and they will be your managers for each newscast. They’ll run the story meetings, decide what stories you’ll cover, help you with any questions you may have about your story assignments, assign time allotments to each story, determine the newscast story order, and produce the newscasts. They’ll also be reporters as needed.
About your instructor
PantherVision is a class-based newscast, and the instructor is charged with the responsibility to ensure that all stories meet high standards of journalism and adhere to all laws governing broadcasting, including libel laws. The instructor will grade, but not air, stories not meeting those standards.
About teamwork
As you might imagine by looking at all the players involved in producing PantherVision, teamwork is essential. There are literally hundreds of aspects to a single newscast, and dozens of people who work on it.
Successfully getting a quality newscast on the air requires that everyone involved work together as a cohesive unit. Reporters need to develop a team rapport with photojournalists, producers with directors, anchors with floor directors, assignment managers with newsroom staff.
The key to developing a sense of teamwork is respect. It’s OK if there are differences of opinion – that’s healthy. But it’s not OK to show disrespect for your fellow teammates.
Work hard, work together, and have fun!
Syllabus 584-342 Television News Reporting