YEAR ONE - 'JOURNALISM NOW' PROJECT

We are now starting the Journalism Now project. This is an attempt to make an online history of journalism. Each student has been assigned a topic to research. Each student will write an initial 500 words on the topic, in so doing each student will come to know that aspect of journalism history in some detail. By using blogs as well as teaching sessions we will as a group gain a cohesive view of the history of journalism in the UK and the USA. Depending on how well the project goes, we can add further sections and topics including for example the magazine industry and new types of interactive online journalism. But to begin with we will use fairly standard academic categories for the study of the history of journalism.

Assessment and method: Students should start by searching the internet and move on to do their own basic bibliographical research (ie obtaining books and following up references to further books). Each topic should include an exhaustive book list and list of internet web links relating to the topic and this should be in addition to the 500 words of body text. Illustrations should be used where possible (but any pictures used must be cleared for copyright). For assessment purposes the 500 words of writing must be 100% accurate in terms of English usage - and this will test the learning in the 'precision English' sessions. The 100 percent requirement applies only to students whose first language is English. Where English is a second language a graded assessment system will be used.

We believe that Journalism Now project will rapidly grow to become a significant internet resource. It is the perfect venture into being published online in a coherent publication which will attract considerable traffic and become widely and increasingly read. Contributions will be by-lined Traffic will be monitored and this will help you overcome any nerves about being published. We believe it is the ideal way to start you off, while you are still learning some of the basics like shorthand, media law and precision English which you will need to deploy in more advanced activities such as news reporting and feature writing.

The deadline for the project is the end of the allocated session on October 29th. The Thursday morning sessions in week four (next week) and week five have been allocated for this work. We advise that you attend and work on your own in TAB9 because you will be in the presence of other students and you can compare notes. This time is also allocated for practising shorthand and it is good to do that alongside other students. If there are not sufficient work stations available in TAB9 you may be able to use machines in the MMC or in the library or learning cafe. You may work from home, but we do not recommend this. These are unsupervised sessions and you are expected to be able to research your topic and produce completely accurate text by the deadline. You might find it helps to work in pairs for proof reading purposes. Work that is not 100 percent accurate will not be accepted and you will need to do the work again until it is completely accurate. The work will then be published in the appropriate section of Journalism Now. You can submit your 500 word piece by posting it on your blog.

HERE ARE THE TOPICS ALLOCATIONS:

Dale Gornall - Guttenburg, Caxton and the origins of printing
Gareth Messenger - The Courants: War Stories, Trade and Exploration
Karen Purnell - The Spectator - The birth of the periodical press
Hannah Keegan - The Press - French and American Revolution: John Wilkes
Laura Dickson - Cobbett, Rural Rides, Reportage and Poverty
Jake Gable - Political agitation and the Political Press
Claire Lomas - The steam driven rotary press: The Times and The Empire
Katie Rowles - The News of the World and Popular Journalism
Michael Connolly - Crimea and The Telegraph
Cara Laithwaite - The High Victorian Press/Dickensian Reading Public
Rebecca Worth - New York 1900 - The Birth of the Tabloid
Rebecca Gray - The Daily Mail and Metroland (1900 - 1930)
Andrew Giddings - Northcliffe, Rothermere and the 30s circulation war
William Cooper - Beaverbrook, Churchill and the Second World War
Charlotte Clarke - The Rise of the Daily Mirror : Post War Britain
Michael Smith - Rupert Murdoch and the Sun
Justyna Chlad - Broadsheets - the case of The Guardian.
Domonique Jenkins - Trends in UK national newspapers now
Aimee Pickering - Reith and the BBC
Jack Courtez - BBC in WW2
Julie Cordier - Origins of TV News – 1940s/1950s
David Champion - US TV News the 1970s - now
Sebastian Farris - The rise of ITN
Lauren Burnside - Sky News