Course Title: Reporting And Newswriting
Part A: Course Overview
Course ID: 006085
Course Title: Reporting And Newswriting
Credit Points: 18
Course Code |
Campus |
Career |
School |
Learning Mode |
Teaching Period(s) |
COMM1040 |
City Campus |
Undergraduate |
335H Applied Communication |
Face-to-Face |
Course Coordinator: Erica Cervini
Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 1066
Course Coordinator Email: erica.cervini@rmit.edu.au
Course Coordinator Location: 6.2.17
Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities
COMM2091 Introduction to Journalism
Course Description
This course teaches advanced techniques in reporting hard news and introduces students to the basics of soft newswriting. The syllabus will cover the following areas: news sense; the development of hard news stories; understanding the role of the PR professionals; researching a story; identifying soft news and writing soft news and profile.
Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development
Students will develop a stronger appreciation of, and skills in, newswriting and the news gathering process through instruction and practise in generating news ideas, evaluating information and sources, building contacts and writing hard and soft news stories. Concepts of good practice introduced in Introduction to Journalism, such as the importance of excellent grammar, spelling and punctuation and adherence to house style, will be reinforced.
On completing this course, students will understand:
- the sources of information available for newsgathering purposes
- the methods of deriving information from news sources
- the criteria for evaluating the validity of information
- how to write effective hard news reports for print
- how to generate hard and soft news ideas
- how to write soft news
Overview of Learning Activities
Students will attend one lecture and one tutorial each week. Lectures will introduce concepts which students will then put into practice in tutorials through practical writing exercises and field assignments. Some lectures will include guest speakers from industry. Students will find it difficult to progress through this course if they do not attend lectures and tutorials.
Overview of Learning Resources
As well as the prescribed text, students are expected to read daily and weekly newspapers and listen to and watch a variety of television and radio news programs.
Overview of Assessment
Assessment for this course consists of tutorial participation, news quizzes and a number of hard and soft news stories. Students need to reach a satisfactory standard in all components of the assessments to pass the course.