Contemporary News Media - Fall 2010 Course Outline

Jour 215/2 Mondays 6 p.m.-8:15 p.m., Location CJ 3.306 Instructor: Aaron Derfel aderfel@montrealgazette.com Teaching Assistant Gabriela Capurro gabrielacapurro@gmail.com Office Hours: By appointment.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: The undergraduate calendar describes Journalism 215 as follows: This course introduces students to the increasingly complex structures of modern media. It examines the organizations, practices, and problems of news media, focusing on key functions in their day-to-day activities. In any given year, it may explore in detail a particular development or problem in the news media. I would add that with the advent of the Internet, contemporary news media have changed in ways that would have been unimaginable a couple of generations ago. This course will show how the Internet in all its myriad forms has had as great or perhaps greater an impact on journalism as the Gutenberg press in 1439. I dont pretend to have the answers to many of the technical, journalistic and ethical questions posed by contemporary news media, but I do hope that by the end of this course you will be a lot more informed and in a much better position to think critically about the various news media. TEACHING OBJECTIVES: If this course is successful you will be able to: i) state what contemporary news media means to you; ii) understand the role news media owners, journalists, governments, lobbyists, nongovernmental organizations and the public may play in contemporary news media; iii) explain how different media report on major stories; iv) evaluate academic articles and apply their theories to the various news media; v) assess the changing roles of the reporter, corporate media structures, and the audience; vi) write critically about current issues in contemporary news media in a researched academic paper.

YOUR TEACHERS: This is my 10th year as a part-time instructor in the Journalism Department. I also teach Reporting Methods and have taught Feature Writing. Im a graduate of the Journalism Program and have been working at The Montreal Gazette since 1989, covering a number of beats from crime to native affairs. Ive also served as a consultant for a TV documentary on private health care, and have won a number of journalism awards. Since 1998, Ive worked as a health reporter at The Gazette. Gabriela Capurro is a second-year Masters student in Journalism, pursuing a thesis on post-colonial discourses in national newspapers in Mexico and Canada. She earned an undergraduate degree in journalism and social communications from the Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per. From 2006 to 2009, she worked as a desk editor and foreign correspondent for Agence France-Presse in Uruguay. Gabriela will assist in the teaching of this course, devising the weekly news quizzes and correcting them. She will also correct part of the midterm take-home exam.

COURSE MATERIALS: It is recommended that students consult a Canadian style guide, and a guide to essay writing. A couple of recommended books are the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) (6th ed., 2009), Washington, DC, and another is the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (7th ed., 2009) Both books are available at the Vanier Library. The APA style guide is considered the easiest to use. If you need assistance on writing the bibliography and endnotes for your final term paper, you can also consult these two Web sites: http://library.concordia.ca/help/howto/apa.php http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basics-tutorial.aspx All the main reading material will be made available either on this courses Moodle Web site, on reserve at the Vanier Librarys Circulation Desk, or on the Internet via links supplied during class. Please note that you may borrow reading material at the library that is on reserve for a maximum of three hours. It is also imperative that you read daily newspapers like The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Montreal Gazette and La Presse, etc. whether online or in print as well as watching CBC and CTV news whether local or national. You must also listen to CBC Radio (88.5 FM) and CJAD (800 AM). You will have to take weekly quizzes based on your knowledge of current events, and you will have to take part in a presentation, so following the news is essential to this course.

Depending on circumstances, please be advised that some aspects of this course outline (for example, a particular class lesson, a scheduled reading or details of an assignment) are subject to change.
GRADING AND ASSIGNMENTS Weekly news quizzes (starting Sept. 20) will be worth a total of 15 per cent of your total grade. Group news review (starting Oct. 4), worth 15 per cent Midterm take-home exam, worth 20 per cent Final term paper outline, worth 10 per cent Final term paper, worth 40 per cent NEWS QUIZZES 15 % A news quiz is given at the beginning of each class. It is based on the news stories of the past week. Students are expected to rigorously follow the news. That means reading a newspaper every day, listening to a radio newscast, watching a television newscast, and reading an Internet news site. Each quiz will include three or four questions which will require you to identify people and issues in the news that week, plus one or two questions based on that weeks reading, as well as a personal statement of a story that you felt was not adequately covered and why. NEWS REVIEW - A GROUP PRESENTATION 15 % The class will be divided into 10 groups of six or seven students, depending on the number of students enrolled. Starting the fourth class (Oct. 4), groups will present a review of that days news. Students in the group will be assigned to talk briefly about how the press handled the story, how TV reported it, how radio did the job, how the Internet (whether its a blog or a dedicated news-and-opinion Web site) treated the story. Depending on the size of the group, two students might compare and contrast how several news organizations in the same medium say, print treated the story. The first person in the group will introduce the news event and the last person can do a summation, if the group so desires. To prevent a duplication of news stories between groups, the cycle will run as follows: the first group will focus on an international story, the second will focus on a national story and the third will talk about a provincial or local story. This cycle will repeat a little over three times.

This is important! Each student will submit a printed point-form summary of his/her presentation to the professor by 18:00 or 6 p.m. the same day. Note: Late submissions will not be accepted; any student who has not submitted his or her summary by the 18:00 deadline will have his or her grade for the presentation cut in half. The group making the presentation in a given week will not be required to write that weeks news quiz. Instead, the group will be allowed to use that time to coordinate its presentation. Each student taking part in this assignment will be graded according to his/her summary and presentation during class as well as the group review. Students who do not submit an email summary and who do not take part in the review will not receive a grade for this assignment. The presentations should last about 15 minutes. THE MIDTERM TAKE-HOME EXAM 20 % (Week 6 Oct. 25) This exam will be in two parts the first section will be five multiple choice questions based on the class lessons and readings, and the second section will contain two or three questions that require essay-style answers. The essay answers must contain the following: a clear introduction (with thesis statement), four to six explanatory paragraphs, and a clear conclusion. THE FINAL TERM PAPER OUTLINE 10 % (Week 7 Nov. 1) For the final term paper, students will have to prepare an outline, which will help them earn the highest possible grade. Students will be asked to choose from a list of topics. Just to be clear, students will be given the list of final term paper topics on this date. The outline must include the following: i) thesis statement ii) point-form outline of principal discussion points iii) draft conclusion iv) list of works cited using the APA or MLA style (see Web links above) THE FINAL TERM PAPER 40 % (Due Week 13 Dec. 13) This paper will run five to seven pages long or 1,250 to 1,750 words. Please dont write long for the sake for writing long. Your paper must be concise. A well-written and thoroughly researched paper thats five pages long can easily receive an A grade and a poorly-written and badly-researched essay thats seven pages long could receive a failing mark. The word count does not include the bibliography or endnotes. As stated above, students will be asked to choose from a list of topics earlier in the course, and should benefit from the feedback I give them after they submit their outline.

THE LESSONS:

Sept. 13: What is Contemporary News Media? We will go over the course outline and introduce ourselves. We will try to define contemporary news media, and Ill share my personal experience as an ink-stained reporter to highlight the rapid evolution in my field. Reading for Sept. 20: Unchained Reaction: The Collapse of Media Gatekeeping and The ClintonLewinsky Scandal by Bruce A. Williams and Michael X. Delli Carpini. Sept. 20: The end of the God-like TV anchor The class will discuss how the notion of news editors as gatekeepers has collapsed. Using a multimedia presentation, we will show how the Internet has upended the tradition of the omniscient news gatekeeper. We will talk about Walter Cronkite and then compare him with Dan Rather and his ignominious departure from CBS. Reading for Sept. 27: Convergence of News Production in a Digital Age by Eric Klinenberg, ANNALS, AAPSS, 597, January 2005 Sept. 27: The fall and rise of convergence This class will focus on the craze in media convergence, which led to the mergers of AOL-Time Warner in 2000 and the decision by CanWest to purchase the old Southam chain of newspapers in 2000. We will trace the rise and fall of corporate convergence. Finally, we will demonstrate how another kind of convergence has, in fact, succeeded. Reading for Oct. 24: Media-Hype: Self-Reinforcing News Waves, Journalistic Standards and the Construction of Social Problem, by Peter L.M. Vasterman Oct. 4: Amplified news The news cycle: how contemporary news media create major stories that crash upon the public in waves. How some of these reports reverberate off each other, creating an echo chamber effect. Is this good for the public? We will highlight the reporting on BHP to show the virtues of news waves, and reporting on mass murders to show some of the evils. Reading for Oct. 18: Capitulation to capital? OhMyNews as alternative media by EunGyoo Kim and James W. Hamilton, Media, Culture & Society, 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol. 28(4): 541560

Oct. 18: Citizen journalism boom or bust? We will examine the advent of citizen journalism. This class will talk about CNNs putative citizen journalists. We will discuss the growing popularity of Twitter and how it was used to report on election protests in Iran. Reading for Oct. 25: Survey of the Blogosphere Finds 12 Million Voices by Felicia R. Lee, New York Times. Oct. 25: Everyones a blogger The blogosphere catches fire. How blogs are increasingly shaping the news. From left- to right-wing perspectives, ideologically-motivated bloggers are taking their views to the Internet, and sometimes distorting things terribly. We will talk about the Shirley Sherrod case. If we have time, well also discuss the Huffington Post, a blog that is watched closely. Reading for Nov. 1. Dare to speak: Whos protecting the government and corporate workers who expose wrongdoing? by Alex Roslin, Montreal Gazette, Aug. 28, 2010. Nov. 1: Whistle blowers in the online age Bypassing the trusted reporter: the phenomenal success of Wikileaks. Gone are the days when a whistle blower had to call up a reporter to expose government wrongdoing. Today, sources can easily and anonymously leak documents to Wikileaks. Well talk about Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon papers. Is this a good thing and why is it happening? Reading for Nov. 8: Chapter 2, Worthy and Unworthy Victims by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Pantheon Books, 2002. Nov. 8: The conspiracy view of mass media Are we in the news media unwittingly supporting the interests of the powerful and wealthy elite? That would be Noam Chomskys position, more or less. Or are we simply amusing ourselves to death, in the words of Neil Postman? IMPORTANT: The midterm take-home exam will be due on this date. Readings for Nov. 15: To be announced.

Nov. 15: Stalkarazzi, paparazzi and Michael Jackson TMZ and gossip news, or infotainment, are ubiquitous in the contemporary news media landscape. And increasingly, entertainment gossip news is influencing the mainstream news media. But are some journalists in this field going too far? IMPORTANT: The outline for the final paper will be due on this date. Reading for Nov. 22: Cultivating a Relationship That Works: CyberVigilantism and the Public Versus Private Inquiry of Cyber-Predator Stings by Christopher Winters and Kansas Law Journal, 2008 Nov. 22: Gotcha journalism TV shows like To Catch A Predator have raised ethical concerns about journalism in the age of the Internet. With the advent of micro-news, and the ever-growing number of news sources, the harm to ones reputation is greater than ever that is, if you get caught in a TV news sting. Reading for Nov. 29: Al Jazeera Think Again by Hugh Miles, Foreign Policy, July/August 2006 Nov. 29: Osama Bin Ladens megaphone We will dissect the phenomenal success of Al Jazeera. Most Westerners know it as the Arabic TV broadcaster that airs videos of Osama Bin Laden, but its obviously more than just that. We will show how it reports on what most Western mainstream news media neglect: developing nations. If there is time, the class will also examine alternative news from Latin America. Readings for Dec. 6: Chapter 8, The Structure and Role of Ownership by Rowland Lorimer and Mike Gasher.. Mass Communication in Canada (5th Edition.) Toronto: Oxford. 2004 or the most recent edition. And: When Head Office Was Upstairs: How Corporate Concentration Change a Television Newsroom by James S. McClean, Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2005) Dec. 6: The Canadian news media landscape Who would have ever thought that a New York hedge fund, Golden Tree Asset Management, would today own The Montreal Gazette and other major dailies across Canada? This class will take stock of Canadas changing news media landscape, and

discuss the threat of greater corporate concentration. We will talk about the controversy that surrounded the decision by CanWest to impose national editorials in newspapers across the country. Reading for Dec. 13: How Technology Is Renewing Attention to Long-form Journalism by Mallary Jean Tenore, Poynter Institute Dec. 13: The sky is falling or is it? Conventional news media are dead. Highly paid news media executives are struggling to keep their newspapers, radio and TV stations relevant amid the myriad new sources of news on the Internet. Conventional media are reporting drops in their audiences and ad revenue is dwindling. Why is this happening? Is this good? What some news organizations are doing to become more innovative. IMPORTANT: The final term paper will be due on this date. MY E-MAIL POLICY: I welcome emails and try to respond as quickly as possible, except for the weekend. If you email me on Saturday or Sunday, Ill probably get back to you on the following Monday. THIS IS IMPORTANT: I will not accept emailed assignments for many reasons: I might not get them because of a technical glitch; I might not be able to open an attachment; I dont like to print out lots of assignments on my home printer and I dont like to re-format essays that might be in small type. So please, submit your papers at the beginning of class on the day they are due.

GRADING EQUIVALENCE: Grade Value A+ A AB+ B BC+ C CD+ D DF Grade Points Percentage Meaning

4.3 4.0 3.7 3.3 3.0 2.7 2.3 2.0 1.7 1.3 1.0 0.7 0.0

90-100 85-89 80-84 77-79 73-76 70-72 67-69 63-66 60-62 57-59 53-56 50-52 < 50

Outstanding

Very Good

Satisfactory

Marginal Pass Failure

GRADING SCHEME A Outstanding, exceptional work, addresses all the key questions, no obvious holes or errors, well-produced, clear, concise, well- organized, meets or exceeds all expectations. B Very good, good, solid work, but not exceptional. Addresses all the key questions, but may lack small details, ambition, creativity. Generally well-produced, clear, coherent, but not exceptional. C Satisfactory, meets minimal requirements, but lacks answers to some questions, could be clearer, more cohesive, contains small errors or holes, indicates a lack of full effort. D Unsatisfactory, unacceptable work. Some effort has been made, but suffers from one or more serious flaws, such as: instructions not followed, poorly executed, errors in fact, presentation errors F Fail Work demonstrates a serious lack of effort and/or commitment. Demonstrates a failure to apply basic skills, very poorly produced and/or completely disregards assignment instructions. UNIVERSAL POLICY STATEMENT As an applied program, the Department of Journalism is committed both to teaching students how to practise journalism as well as how to conduct themselves as working professionals. For this reason, we enforce strictly a number of rules concerning attendance in class and deadlines for course assignments. Attendance in all classes is mandatory and is excused only in the case of serious medical or personal reasons (supported by a signed doctors note) or an internship organized by the department. Students on internship must inform their instructors in advance and remain responsible for all assignments during their absence. Once registered for a course, a student missing four or more classes, for whatever reason, will receive a failing grade. Instructors may deduct up to 10 per cent of a students final grade for poor attendance, chronic lateness or inappropriate behaviour. All course assignments must be completed in the sequence and time frame stipulated in the course outline. Students must submit all assignments at the beginning of class, unless otherwise specified by the instructor. University-wide regulations are contained in the undergraduate and graduate calendars and the full list of department-specific rules and regulations is posted on the third-floor bulletin board, the computer labs, and classrooms CJ 3.307 and CJ 5.305.