Classroom: Hamilton Smith 103, main floor, top of the stairs on the MUB side of the building
Office: Hamilton Smith 51C (basement, Thompson Hall side, just inside the door)
Office phone: 603-862-3538
The very best ways to find me:
Email: marsters@unh.edu
Cell phone: 207-831-4726
Office hours: Monday noon-1 or by appointment
Please, before you do anything else for this course, study and bookmark the UNH Journalism Program Web site. You can access it through online version of this syllabus on the class blog at www.unhmultimedia.blogspot.com.
Required reading:
You must own a copy of “The Associated Press Stylebook.” If you don't already have it, be sure to buy one at the Durham Book Exchange.
You are also required to subscribe to The New York Times and read it every weekday. Cost is $25. Please bring to next class in cash or check payable to UNH.
Tools:
You may want to bring a USB thumb-drive or memory stick or portable hard drive in case you want to take some class work home. Get the biggest one you can afford, at least 2 gigs. Video cameras, digital still cameras, and decent field recorders will all come in handy. We own a limited number for loaning. You can also borrow them from the Parker Media Lab in Dimond Library.
Course objectives:
To become familiar with the tools and techniques of multimedia reporting and explore the integration of new media with traditional journalistic principles in a rapidly evolving industry.
Course description:
So far the Journalism Program has trained you to be good print reporters. You know how to recognize news, gather facts, verify those facts, then arrange them in a readable news or feature story for use in a print publication, all the while exercising good judgment and adhering to journalists' ethics codes. You wanted to become writers, and now you are. You certainly have used online resources such as Google and you may have had your own blog in Newswriting or another class, but so far you have not experienced the deep convergence of all sorts of new and traditional media that has altered forever the lives of journalists all over.
These days all news organizations, including newspapers, are asking much more of their reporters. The digital age has brought us still and video cameras that can think for themselves, simple, affordable, portable digital audio recorders that can produce professional results, simple blogging software that can make anyone a publisher, and complex software that allows us to bring all of these tools together on that other great gift of the digital age, the Internet. Hell, you could shoot, record and edit an entire multimedia show on an iPhone.
All this means that we can tell some stories in more exciting, more timely (remember 621 and the importance of timeliness as a criteria for news judgment?) and sometimes more compelling ways. But to do so we need to learn some new skills so that we can present ourselves in today’s newsrooms as journalists who can apply our storytelling talents to a broad range of media, from print to radio to television to the Internet while maintaining a foundation of solid journalistic process.
For most of us, this is pretty new stuff. We are great at consuming information off the Internet. We suck in information like addicts. Yet we are not so great at creating content and contributing it via the Internet. So this semester we’ll learn together, and, with the help of a few visiting professionals, we'll acquire the various skills necessary for telling multimedia stories. Then we’ll merge them – words, images and sound – in individual and perhaps group story projects. It probably won’t be pretty. At times it will be very frustrating. But I promise we’ll have fun, and I promise that whatever kind of media you choose to specialize in, you’ll become a better, more observant journalist for the experience.
A great deal will be expected of you during this semester. I am here to guide you on an exploration of how we apply the principles of journalism in the world of new media. I'm not a geek. I'm a very good word and visual editor. I'm an experienced journalist. Whatever computer skills I have acquired were hard earned. A lot of the technical side of this course will be trial and error. You will work through problems on your own and with the help of your classmates, some of whom have considerable experience and are very tech savvy, others who are not so comfortable in a digital world but have other skills to bring to the table. This is a team effort, and though you will encounter many frustrations along the way, you will be better served for having gotten your hands dirty figuring it all out.
Grades:
For basic parameters, see the Journalism Program’s grading outline on our website. The areas we will cover include: blogging; shooting and editing photographs; shooting and editing video; recording and editing audio; and bringing it all together in a final project. I will grade you on the products of each phase, i.e., your photos, your videos, your sound files. That will count for 25 percent of your grade. Another 25 percent of your grade will reflect your contributions to the class, i.e., participation in discussions, helpfulness to other students, and ability to work in teams. The final 50 percent will be the grade you receive on your final project.
Conferences:
I will meet with each of you individually several times during the semester to give you individual feedback on your work, troubleshoot technical stuff with which you are having problems, or discuss whatever you like. These sessions are mandatory. These conference days will be announced and sign-up sheets will be circulated. I will meet with anyone, individually or in teams or groups, at any time. Just ask.
Remember:
In order to get a B or better in this course you will need to:
- Meet all deadlines
- Attend class and get there on time.
- Attend your scheduled conferences with me.
- Notify me beforehand if you can't make it to or conference due to illness or other valid emergency.
- Show steady improvement throughout the course.
- Keep up with the news through the New York Times.
- Create and present a solid, newsworthy, journalistically sound multimedia project.
Three misses (a class, an assignment, a conference or any combination of the three) and you are on probation. One more and you fail the course.
Plagiarism: All work in this course must be original. Plagiarism will be dealt with severely.
Fabrication: Do not under any condition or for any reason fabricate your stories in part or whole. That includes quotes, photos, videos or anything else. Fabrication of anything will earn you a failing grade and could end your journalism studies at UNH.
Finally: This course will be unlike any course you’ve taken before. My goal is to have fun and, alongside you, see if we can master this multimedia stuff.
