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Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 14

"If you ever write something really good and get really lucky, you might just get nominated for an award. Most of these awards are completely useless, of course. It's like an actor winning a Kid's Choice Award or a singer winning a Grammy: big deal, nobody cares. But there's one award that can actually make a journalist proud: the Pulitzer Prize. It's given to people who've achieved greatness in journalism, literature, and music every year. Guess which one we're focusing on."

"As a journalist, you can win a Pulitzer in one of fourteen categories, including - and you'd better be writing this down - Public Service, Breaking News Reporting, Investigative Reporting, Explanatory Reporting, Local Reporting, National Reporting, International Reporting, Feature Writing, Commentary, Criticism, Editorial Writing, Editorial Cartooning, Breaking News Photography, and Feature Photography. A lot of these are self explanatory. If you can't figure out what exactly an award for Breaking News Reporting is, you should give up now."

"But there are some that you probably need explained. Let's start with Explanatory Reporting. That's where you take a specific issue - stories on the Hubble Space Telescope, air traffic control, stem cell research, and Yemen have each one on the past - and just explain the hell out of it so that readers can actually be informed for once. Feature Writing is usually some sob story about how somebody was wronged and is looking for revenge in the form of a job and/or money. In theory it could be about pretty much any major story, though. Commentary tends to be a series of articles that harp on a certain subject, informing the public about it and raising the subject's profile. This usually ends up being a government expose of some sort. Editorial writing is less about informing and more about swaying opinion. Editorial cartooning is the same thing but with pictures."

"But the grand prize of the night is the Public Service award, which is awarded to newspapers instead of individuals. A paper will earn this award through overall excellence, often led by a specific series of articles by specific people."

"Next week is your final. Each of you is going to pick one of the individual categories to work in. Here's how it's going to work. Pick your category, figure out what you're going to write about, prepare to the best of your abilities before next Thursday, come here and write. The breaking news reporting and photography have to focus on something that happens next Thursday before class starts, so you better find something interesting between waking up and coming here or you're screwed. The people who choose photography have it easy during the final since they should have their pictures taken before class, but it's up to you to supply a digital camera so you can submit the picture to me first thing when class starts. And they still have to sit here while everyone else does real work. If you disrupt anyone working on an article, that's a letter grade off. If you fall asleep while you're waiting, that's a letter grade off. And I may call on you and give you a photo assignment that you need to complete during class or you fail. Keep that in mind."

"After it's all said and done, I'll assemble the articles into a newspaper, distribute it among the group, and let you know if any of the articles are worth winning a class Pulitzer. If you have any questions, ask them now."

[OOC: Sign up in the OCD. If you don't pick something, I'll grab one of the remaining categories for you and let you know. If you want to actually write an article in your chosen category on a subject of your choice, it should be about 200-400 words long and will be included in a Journalism Class Finals Edition newspaper. If you'd rather handwave, I'll still need a headline for your article so that the newspaper can direct people to a handwavey page "2D" or something. If you want to find or photoshop a picture for the photography categories, that would be love.

Please don't pick the photography categories unless you'll be game for running around in a different post next Thursday because you WILL get another photo assignment to keep you busy.]

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All fancy, like you're attending an awards ceremony.

Blair Waldorf

Claire Fisher

Anemone

Lois Lane

Buffy Summers

Annja Creed

Amber Atkins

Worf

Teddy Altman

Rikku

... she thinks that's fancy. Don't tell her it isn't.

Robin

Sam Witwicky

Toby

Warren Peace

Cal Stephanides

Pay attention!

Choose one of the Pulitzer Prize categories to work in. There are thirteen individual categories and fifteen students, so TWO categories will be doubled up. I'll leave that to you to figure out. If more than two categories get doubled up, somebody will have to swap for one of the unused categories. If somebody doesn't pick something, I'll grab you OOCly in the next couple days.

The actual writing of the articles is handwavable, but I'll love you forever if you actually get them together for next Thursday.

Breaking News Reporting
Investigative Reporting:
Explanatory Reporting
Local Reporting
National Reporting
International Reporting
Feature Writing
Commentary
Criticism
Editorial Writing
Editorial Cartooning
Breaking News Photography
Feature Photography

Blair decided to go with Criticism. She never lacked for opinions.

Like Claire would pick anything besides a photography category. She went with Feature Photography, reasoning it would be easier to take a feature photograph first thing in the morning than it would be to find a news event.

Lois decided to go with Investigative Reporting. Maybe she could finally figure out why John's hair was all pointy like that.

That might worth a Pulitzer, actually.

Buffy decided to go with Commentary. She even added commentary to slaying. It was perfect for her.

Annja signed up for Editorial Writing.

She editorialized life as it was, any way.

Amber went with Local Reporting.

Worf decided to go for feature writing.

Rikku was going to snag Breaking News. It sounded exciting and dangerous like that.

Robin signed up for Explanatory Reporting. He had an idea.

Sam went with International Reporting. Mostly because he thought it sounded kinda vague, and as a student vague was his best friend.

Toby was at a loss where his pretty horrorscopes fit into these categories.

While Cartooning sounded tempting, Anemone shrugged and signed herself up for Feature Writing. The teacher didn't seem to see art as journalism, and if she was going to fail, she'd rather fail in a spectacular fashion.

After you've picked your category, figure out what you're going to write about.

Is she in a better mood yet?

If not, she'll make a GREAT editor in Jonah's opinion.

Rikku didn't hold grudges very well, but she was still a touch gruff at Jonah with his coffee.

"What if there isn't any breaking news?" she asked. "Next week, I mean."

"There's always breaking news!" Jonah said. "Sometimes it's just not very good. That's the risks you run in the breaking news game."

"Can't I make something happen, and then report on that?" Rikku asked.

Who needed ethics? This was journalism.

"Of course you could," Jonah said. "But you might get a lower grade for it."

"Why?" Rikku asked, folding her arms. "Something exciting would happen, then I'd report on it, win-win. And if someone found out it was me, that'd make for a pretty interesting expose."

"That's not journalism, that's tabloid crap at best," Jonah said.

"I thought tabloids made things up," Rikku said firmly. "It's not making things up if you start blowing up a classroom and then report on the dangerous stand-off going on in your Journalism class."

"You're still making things up. It's just that they happen to be coming true because of you," Jonah said.

"Actually, I'm making things happen, and reporting on them," she said coolly. "I mean, you phrase it like I'd make things up and then do them. I would totally wait until the room blew up to start reporting on the explosions."

"You're still the newsmaker instead of the reporter," Jonah said. "It's either or."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're no fun?" Rikku asked.

"Plenty of times! And they were wrong every time!" Jonah said.

Questions?

You know, I tried to write up a Pulitzer class about three times throughout the semester and just couldn't get it right. It wasn't until the last time that I realized that it would be a perfect final.

I'm slow sometimes.

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