Intro to Journalism 9/8

Today we had a fire drill. In the event of a fire turn right out of the classroom door and proceed down the stairs and away from the building.

Once we resumed class we discussed current events. Some of the issues that were brought up were: Hurricane Earl, the Ground Zero mosque, the pastor in Florida that plans to burn copies of the Quran on Saturday, the local counselor being placed on the sex offender registry for having an inappropriate relationship with a client, and the San Diego Padres slide into mediocrity as they close out this year’s regular baseball season. (Reminder, current events will be the activity that counts towards your participation during the week.)

We also discussed the developing news story. I handed out a mock write-up that he did to model how you might incorporate the information from day one into a news story. I also provided you with the new details from day two of this developing story. The write up for day two is due tomorrow at the beginning of class. These write ups only need to be three to five paragraphs long.

The last thing we discussed in class was sources. What is a source, how can you tell if a source is reliable, and how to check your sources. This information is all contained in pp.70-71 of the Harrower textbook.

I also mentioned that Friday, if you have an interview that you can line up during class, you may use that class time to work. If you don’t have any interviews, reporting, or copy-editing (AP Style checking) to do on Friday I will have a video prepared. This should all be in preperation for your news story that’s due on Monday.

If you have questions over anything at all please do not hesitate to stop in and see me. I’m here before and after school and can make time to help you with class work during sixth or seventh hours.

Edit: The new information for day two should say that Phillips hit a BUS when leaving the parking lot, not a car. Thanks to Jensen for catching this error. I’m sorry for any confusion.