100-105 Writing Journalism

This subject is only available to students enrolled in the BA (Media and Communications), BA (Media and Communications)/Bachelor of Commerce, and BA (Media and Communications)/Bachelor of Laws.

100 points of arts subjects including 25 points of core Media and Communications subjects at first year.

This subject teaches the craft of writing news stories and features for print and electronic media. Students learn what news is, how news stories are written, how concise and clear language is vital to effective communication, how news stories are gathered, how they are presented, and how different journalists might deal with the same story. Feature and critical writing are explored, including specialised forms of journalistic writing such as travel, obituaries, columns and reviews. The course teaches students some of the principles of writing for public relations and for in-house journals, and deals with the symbiotic relationship between PR practitioners and the news media. Principles of good interviewing are also covered in this course. A portion of the subject is devoted to broadcast journalism, including instruction in the art of writing for radio and TV, incorporation of interviews, writing to pictures and production of news bulletins. Other areas of instruction include editing, ethics and fairness and excellence in writing. On completion of this subject, students should have developed a strong grasp of journalistic practices, ethics and skills.

A news story of 500 words 15% (due early in semester), a specialised feature story of 1500 words 25% (due mid-semester), a long feature story of 2000 words 50% (due end of semester) and class participation including tutorial exercises 10%.

A subject reader will be available.