1. Welcome to JOU 3117 News Reporting & Writing
Assoc. Professor & SFNS News Director
Dan Evans
(m) | @EditorDanEvans

2. What we’re covering
Introductions > Who am I? Who are you? What do you hope to get out of this class?
Overall goals > What we’re going to be doing
Review syllabus and class infrastructure > What are we learning this semester?
NewsU > Sign up and complete “The Building Blocks of News”

3. Introductions What is your name?
Who is your favorite writer or journalist?
What scares you about this class?
What excites you about this class?
What do you hope to get out of it?

4. Overall Goals
Reporting and Writing > Putting together a beautiful, well-written word story
Quoting AP Style at Parties > Everyone loves the guy/gal who knows when to capitalize a title and when to lowercase it. Amiright?
Honing the B.S. Detector > The difference between the official tale and the real one.
Falling in love with journalism > The best job in the world

5. Expectations Be on time > Yes, traffic sucks. Be here anyhow.
Be a professional > Treat your colleagues and sources with respect. This does not mean being a pushover, but politeness will get you much further in this business.
Real world problems > Understand that while this is a class, you will need to be dealing with people in the real world. They may ignore you, or be afraid of you.
Work hard and ask for help > I won’t know your issues if you don’t tell me about them.

6. High Classsss
You are reporters for SFNS > You are not playing journalists. You ARE journalists.
Attendance is more than kinda mandatory > A significant amount of your grade is based on what we do here. We will have news quizzes or a drill essentially each week. They can’t be made up.
But in-field work is part of our class > At points in the semester, we will not be meeting so you can work on your pieces. We will also be scheduling one-on-one meetings at other times.
The AP Stylebook is REQUIRED > Not even kidding about this. You must have the book or App with you.

7. More Stuff
Communicate! > Go to EditorDanEvans.com for class info. Set up your own WhatsApp
Plagiarism and Fabrication > These are the unforgivable curses of journalism. Anyone caught ripping off someone else’s work or making stuff up will get a zero. At minimum.
Read the paper, damnit > In general, items for our news quizzes will be taken from reports in the Miami Herald and New York Times. So, you know, read those things.
Journalism is simple, not easy > The harder you work, the easier this will be. You will have to put in the time to make this work.

8. Your Dropbox or, how you get credit
You should have received a link. > This is vital for this class. Find it, yo.
Create the following folders: > News Quiz / News Drill / Homework / Articles / NewsU.org
Word Docs ONLY!! > Put your name on BOTH the document file AND on the piece itself. Example: Evans - News Drill 1
Exception: NewsU > I will need you to give me a screenshot of the completion section for each module.

9. Sign up for NewsU https://www.newsu.org/
Complete: “News Sense: The Building Blocks of News” and you’re FREEEEE!

10. Homework Reading: Miami Herald and New York Times (daily). Homework:
Complete the grammar review handout by the start of next class. File to the “Homework” folder. Put your name on the sheet. Duh.

11. Assoc. Professor & SFNS News Director
Dan Evans
(m) | @EditorDanEvans