Fandom High School

"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."

( Cut for PRIZES! )

[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.]

For once, Jonah didn't say a word until the bell rang. And even then he paused and looked at his students for a moment.

"Well?" he finally said. "THERE ARE ZOMBIES INVADING THE ISLAND! WRITE ABOUT IT! I expect a full page article from everyone next week detailing a story of Fandom in the throes of an invasion of the undead! Now, start writing, start preparing questions to ask zombie survivors or maybe the zombies themselves!"

"Okay, we've mucked around for a few weeks. Now it's time to get back to real journalistic issues," Jonah said. "Investigative journalism! You come up with a story, investigate it, and write about it. I don't know how to make this any simpler for you people."

"Investigative reports are often some of your splashier stuff since you're theoretically uncovering something with your investigation, otherwise it would just be regular journalism. It could be exposing corruption in local government - which I won't talk about more in class, but if you want to hear more about my thoughts on the local government, listen to me on WTFH radio, Saturday nights - or proving that people in business are criminals, which tends to be more surprising than you'd think, or that doctors are covering up malpractice... Basically, anything that people don't know, can't prove, or want to cover up, that's what an investigative reporter goes after."

"An investigative report often starts with one of two things: Sheer dumb luck or a tip, which is sometimes the same thing. One way, you just happen to be in the right place at the right time, overhear something that you need more information on, catch an interesting bit of information while researching something else, or just decide to start looking at something that's interested you for a while and it turns out there's more to it than you thought, something like that. The other way, somebody comes to you - you're their friend, you're somebody they know from your reporting, maybe you're just the first person they seen when they're trying to spread the word, who knows? Somebody comes to you, gives you some information, and you need to know more and bring it out to the world as a news report."

"Once you start down the road of investigative reporting, you usually find yourself staying in that area. It's fun, it's professionally rewarding, it's flashier and gets your name out there more often, and you find yourself with sources who are willing to give you more tips. It can also be dangerous, depending on what you're investigating, so it does require you to have some common sense. Several of the people in this room have enough common sense to make that work. Congratulations to them."

"This is going to be the first of two weeks spent on investigative journalism. This week, you're going to figure out what kind of subject you want to investigate. There should be no shortage of them here in Fandom, so have fun with that. Over the course of the next week, do your investigations. Spend time in the library, interview people, come up with the story that you're going to write next week when we'll talk about how to organize that information into an article."

"This week's topic isn't on your syllabus," Jonah said. The bell rang to officially begin the class before anyone could point out that he never handed any syllabi out. "But it's important to journalism, so we're going with it."

"Photography! You've heard that a picture's worth a thousand words? Well, a great picture on your front page can be worth tens of thousands of readers. Journalistic photographs aren't necessarily your art school crap of two men playing chess in a park. Journalistic photographs do three things. First, they look good, obviously. You're not going to sell a story with an out of focus picture unless it's of a creature that doesn't actually exist. Second, they tell a story. It's why it's called 'photojournalism.' Whether the story is about a mother reunited with her children, firefighters fighting a fire, or a masked 'hero'" Jonah finger-quoted that, "committing a crime, your photo has to get the point across even without the article running alongside it. Third, if you're going to put it with an article, it should be the most iconic version of the scene possible, because THAT is what makes your story sing instead of whistling offkey."

"Let's put it this way. You write an article about firefighters handling a horrible fire. What's your angle? 'There was a fire here and these men took care of it'? No! You find a human interest story there. Who were the tenants? Could their homes be salvaged? Who fought the fire? Did they have any connections to the building? A cousin of a friend of an aunt of the landlord or something? You look for the right angle for the story. Same thing goes for photojournalism, except that it's literal. You need to physically find the right angle, take your picture at just the right time. Most of the time this is easy as crap; find an angle that looks good, you take your shot and that's the end of that. But once in a while you find a truly great shot that will make up for the mediocrity you've shown the rest of the time."

"So, here's what your assignment is. Each of you has a disposable camera. I took 23 pictures in a dark room with each of them, leaving you with one exposure left. Tell me a story with that last picture. I don't really care what the story is and it's a tiny town so I'm well aware that the story could be either really boring or really really unbelievable. I'll be in my office next Wednesday. Drop your cameras off then handwavey is fine and we'll look at the photos next week."

"Don't think you're done yet. Here's a picture," Jonah said, turning on a projector and showing this image. "This picture tells a story. Figure out what it is. I bet you can't figure out what story the caption told."

"Okay, pass up your reviews and I'll get to work giving them my criticism," Jonah said. He was practically cackling. He'd figured out his favorite part of being a teacher,"

"While i'm doing that, you're going to get started on your next article. That's right, we're doing another article. If you looked at your syllabus-" Jonah had still never passed those out and he probably wasn't going to by this point, "it would have told you we were doing something else, but I changed my mind. If you have a problem with that, write a letter to the editor and leave it by my office on Friday. Anyway, what we're focusing on this week is tabloid journalism."

"The word 'tabloid' technically refers to paper size. Instead of being a huge paper with folds all over the place, the sheets that make up a tabloid tend to be about half the size of a traditional newspaper and use more of a magazine layout. Pretty much nobody knows this anymore because the word has come to refer to the sleaziest, least journalistic kind of journalism there is. When most people think of a tabloid, they think of the National Enquirer, the New York Post, Weekly World News, and damn near every newspaper in England, where facts can be made up for the sake of a story, headlines are the ONLY important thing, and unidentified sources tend to be something you ate last night that's causing you to hallucinate now and that's good enough. They're the kind of news sources where, when you hear that somebody got in trouble for making stories up entirely, it doesn't surprise you."

"Now, don't get me wrong. Going for sensationalistic stories is one thing. It can get people reading your newspaper when that's an increasingly rare thing. But once you have the flashy story with the flashy headline, you have to back it up with real journalism. Find out what the facts are, report them, back it up with sources that actually exist. The trashy tabloids often don't bother with any of that. That's why they're called the 'gutter press.'"

"Today I'm going to let you see how easy it can be to be this kind of journalist. Pick a subject - someone you know, something you hate, I don't care - and write a profile on he, she, or it. Make up sources, quotes, and even basic facts about them to make for a better story. They have two siblings and you think it would be a better story if they were an only child? Run with it! Implicate them in a triple homicide? It's tabloid journalism, that's fair game! Talk about a building that's scheduled for demolition even though it was torn down a decade ago? As long as the building's in Iowa, nobody will ever know!"

"Write about me and you have detention. Get to work!"

"Now's when we start getting to the good..." The bell rang, interrupting Jonah. Jonah glared at the bell, as if he was willing it to fall off the wall from being glared at so hard. It didn't. He turned back to the class. "The good stuff. INTERVIEWS! They're the bread and butter of the journalist's world. When you interview someone, you get any of four things: One, information for an article. Two, a good quote for an article. Three, a full article if the person you're interviewing is interesting enough to justify a full article. Four, a headache, because the person you're interviewing may either be an idiot or just sound like it, going 'um, uh, um' every five seconds, which you then have to remove while you're transcribing it."

"More lists. There are three keys to conducting a good interview. First, have a bunch of prepared questions because you don't want to sound like an idiot yourself when you're trying to get somebody else to say something worth showing to the rest of the world. Figure out what points you want to hit in the article and ask questions based around that. Don't waste your time with small talk unless it'll get them comfortable enough to play ball. Second, be prepared to throw your prepared questions out for any reason. Half of interviewing is improv. If your subject gives you an interesting lead in an answer, follow that lead instead of sticking to your script. And try not to sound like an idiot while you're making up questions on the fly. It'll make you look bad and since I'm the one teaching you, it'll make me look bad, and then I'll have to yell at you even if you're ten years past graduation and working at a small town paper in Podunk, Iowa, it's not a real town, don't bother looking it up. Third, write, record, and remember everything that's said. If there's a single word you don't have nailed down twice, you might screw it up when it's time to transcribe it. And, if the quote is insane enough, you might not believe it when you have to write it down later, trust me, I've had that happen."

"As for how you actually interview someone? Talk to them, ask them questions, make sure you write it all down. Easy enough? Good. By this time next week, I expect you to have interviewed someone and turn that into an article. I have a gamble for you, though. You can just transcribe the interview itself and put some sort of a fluffy crap introduction on it and turn that in, but that will immediately take away a full letter grade. A students, prepare for a B! Or you can write it up as an actual article about the person, peppered with a few quotes for flavor, risk it being crap and getting a a crap grade while still giving you a chance for an A. Interview someone from this class, find somebody outside of class that you might want to interview, grab a teacher, business owner, or student, I don't care! Anyone who even asks to interview me flunks, though. Don't think you're going to be cute and impress me by trying something that transparent. Oh, and be sure to look at the Fandom Hightimes and don't interview anyone who's been interviewed there. Ever. Keep it fresh! Well, what are you waiting for? Get to work!"

[OOC: For the record, the following current Fandomians have been interviewed by the paper. From the most recent: Ben Reilly, Sarah Walker, Eliza Doolittle, Old Man Coyote, Zoe Winchester, John Winchester, Anakin Skywalker, the Fandom High office staff, Constable Benton Fraser. You're free to interview them again, of course, with the IC stipulation that your grade will suffer for it.

Somebody let me know if I missed anyone! Interviews and write-ups can be handwaved, of course.]

"Sit down, shut up, you're all already three minutes late for class," Jonah said. The bell rang. "Remember, if you want to make it as a journalist, you have to be where the story is before everyone else. If you just showed up right when the bell rings, you've lost your scoop to some geek who can't write half as well as you just because he knows what an alarm clock is. That's today's first lesson, check your syllabus if you don't believe me."

Jonah had never passed out a syllabus.

"Today's second lesson involves writing a fantastic headline. Not a good headline, not a great headline. If you don't have a fantastic headline, you've got crap. Not just crap, but megacrap. Megacrap doesn't sell newspapers. There's already a shrinking market for newspapers, you don't want to make it worse by putting megacrap on your front page."

"If you want a fantastic headline, there are three surefire paths. There are other paths, too, but you risk it being ultracrap and you really don't want that because that'll make me yell at you after class. Neither of us wants that." Jonah paused thoughtfully. Then he grinned. "Well, I do. But that's because I enjoy yelling at people. It makes life more fun."

"The first path is alliteration. 'Notable Newsman Nutures Knowledge in Novices.' You'd all read that article. It would be about me and if you didn't, I'd flunk you. The second path is making headlines that fit with the song Camptown Races. Write a headline with seven syllables, mentally add 'Doo Dah' to the end, and you've got gold. 'Students Learn from Bugle Head.' Go ahead. Add 'doo dah' in your heads. Don't pretend that you don't know the song, it's a classic.... That's better. 'Jameson For Radio.'" Jonah waited until he was sure the students were mentally doo dahing. "Those are headlines that get stuck in people's heads, then they have no choice but to read the article or it'll just roll around in their head all day, driving them insane, slowly but surely, and that'll make it easier to catch them tomorrow."

"But the third path is my favorite. BE BOLD. 'VICE PRINCIPAL DEADPOOL: METH ADDICT?' That catches your attention and makes you read the article because it turns out that your vice principal may be a meth addict. Is he or isn't he? The answer is 'he is,' of course. Why else would he wear that ridiculous knock-off costume and act the way he does? There is no other reason. Therefore, meth addict."

"So, get to work making up four headlines, one from each of those paths and a fourth that has nothing to do with those paths but that you still think is good. You're going to be wrong, of course. Questions? No? Good. Get to work!"

[OOC: Doo dah, doo dah. Deadpool's meth addiction modded with permission.]