Journalistic Writing Course

Lesson 1 • Core Journalistic Values and Ethics

Covers accuracy, fairness, independence, and minimizing harm as operational principles. Students apply these values to evaluate real editorial decisions.

Lesson 2 • The Language of News Writing

Introduces plain, precise, active-voice prose as the standard for news. Students practice converting bureaucratic or passive sentences into clear journalistic language.

Lesson 3 • News Values and Story Selection

Explains the criteria editors use to judge newsworthiness: timeliness, proximity, impact, prominence, and conflict. Students rank story ideas using these criteria.

Lesson 4 • Style Guides and Consistency

Introduces standardized style rules for numbers, titles, dates, and abbreviations used in professional newsrooms. Consistent style signals credibility and professionalism.

Lesson 1 • Source Types and Credibility Assessment

Distinguishes primary, secondary, and expert sources and explains how to assess bias and reliability. Students build a source map for a chosen story.

Lesson 2 • Document and Data Research

Introduces public records requests, database searches, and basic data literacy for reporters. Students locate and summarize a document set relevant to their story.

Lesson 3 • Verification and Fact-Checking

Establishes a repeatable verification workflow to confirm facts before publication. Students apply the workflow to a draft fact sheet and flag unverified claims.

Lesson 4 • Interviewing Techniques

Covers preparation, question design, active listening, and follow-up probing for effective interviews. Students conduct and transcribe a recorded interview.

Lesson 1 • Attribution and Quotation in News

Teaches correct attribution style, direct vs. paraphrased quotes, and when to use each. Students revise a quote-heavy draft to meet attribution standards.

Lesson 2 • Anatomy of the Inverted Pyramid

Explains why information is ranked by importance and how editors cut from the bottom. Students diagram the structure using published news stories.

Lesson 3 • Structuring the Full Hard News Story

Guides students through organizing body paragraphs, secondary facts, and context after the lead. Students assemble a complete 400-word hard news story.

Lesson 4 • Headlines and Subheadings

Covers headline grammar, verb tense conventions, and SEO-aware phrasing for digital publication. Students write three headline variants for each practice story.

Lesson 1 • Techniques for Eliciting Depth

Teaches silence, mirroring, and the funnel technique to move sources from surface answers to revealing detail. Students practice in paired interview exercises.

Lesson 2 • On-Camera and Phone Interview Adaptations

Adapts interview technique for phone, video call, and broadcast contexts where nonverbal cues differ. Students conduct and compare interviews across two formats.

Lesson 3 • Strategic Interview Preparation

Covers deep background research, goal-setting, and question sequencing before an interview. Students prepare a full interview brief for a real or simulated subject.

Lesson 4 • Selecting and Presenting Quotes

Explains how to identify the best quotes, trim without distortion, and integrate them into prose. Students select and edit quotes from a full transcript.

Lesson 1 • Character and Source Development

Covers how to develop human sources into vivid characters through observation and dialogue. Students profile one source using physical detail and direct speech.

Lesson 2 • Finding and Developing the Angle

Teaches how to narrow a broad topic to a specific, compelling angle with a clear focus statement. Students draft a one-sentence focus statement for their feature.

Lesson 3 • Features vs. Hard News

Contrasts the purpose, structure, and tone of features with hard news to clarify when each form is appropriate. Students categorize published pieces by form.

Lesson 4 • Feature Structure and Endings

Presents common feature structures—hourglass, Wall Street Journal format, and circular—and teaches strong endings. Students choose and apply a structure to their draft.

Lesson 1 • Pre-Publication Legal and Ethical Review

Introduces defamation risk, right of reply, and editorial legal review as standard pre-publication steps. Students apply a pre-publication checklist to a draft story.

Lesson 2 • Structuring Complex Investigative Stories

Presents narrative and modular structures for long-form investigative pieces and explains how to sequence revelations. Students outline a multi-part investigative series.

Lesson 3 • Building the Document Trail

Teaches systematic acquisition of records, contracts, financial filings, and correspondence to support investigation. Students build a document index for a practice investigation.

Lesson 4 • Source Networks and Confidentiality

Covers cultivating insider sources, managing confidentiality agreements, and protecting source identity. Students draft a source protection protocol for a hypothetical investigation.

Lesson 1 • Video Journalism Fundamentals

Covers shooting for story, writing to video, and basic editing principles for short-form video journalism. Students script and shoot a 90-second video news package.

Lesson 2 • Social Media as a Reporting Tool

Teaches verification of social media content, live-tweeting events, and sourcing from online communities. Students verify a social media claim using a documented workflow.

Lesson 3 • Data Visualization and Interactives

Explains when data visualization adds value and how to choose chart types and interactive formats. Students select and annotate a visualization for their digital story.

Lesson 4 • Writing for Digital Audiences

Covers scanning behavior, chunked text, hyperlinks, and metadata for online readers. Students reformat a print story for a digital-first audience.

Lesson 1 • Legal and Ethical Pre-Publication Checks

Reinforces defamation, privacy, and copyright checks as mandatory steps before any story is published. Students complete a pre-publication checklist on a final draft.

Lesson 2 • Common Writing Errors in Journalism

Catalogs the most frequent errors in news copy: misattribution, vague language, redundancy, and tense inconsistency. Students identify and correct errors in a marked-up sample.

Lesson 3 • Building a Professional Portfolio

Guides students in selecting, presenting, and pitching a portfolio of published or publishable work. Students assemble a digital portfolio with an accompanying pitch letter.

Lesson 4 • Copy Editing Marks and Workflow

Covers standard copy editing notation, digital markup tools, and the editor-reporter feedback cycle. Students copy-edit a peer's draft using standard markup.