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Journalism Major – Journalism and Creative Writing

Department of journalism and the writing professions.

The Journalism and Creative Writing specialization helps students develop the research, interviewing, writing, editing, and multimedia storytelling skills that are crucial to success across a broad spectrum of fields and professions in this information age.

Our faculty of professional writers and editors will teach you to research, report, interview, and write about urban affairs, politics, crime and the courts, arts and culture, law, education, science, sports, and many other topics. Students have an opportunity, through the media internship program, to gain professional experience during their studies.

All students are invited to showcase their reporting, writing, and editing skills through participation in Dollars & Sense , the national award-winning Baruch College magazine. The program also features opportunities for student awards, paid internships, and full-tuition fellowships.

For creative writing students, this specialization, which is affiliated with the extraordinary Harman Writer-in-Residence program, can help you to improve your own writing. You will find your own voice, as you experiment with a range of writing forms, including biography, creative non-fiction, fiction, and screenwriting, all while you expand your ability to create literary prose that reflects both your talent and critical thinking skills.

Requirements for the Major

Core Journalism Curriculum (15 credits)

Specialization Electives (9-11 credits)

Literature Electives (6 credits)

Students are expected to complete the major requirements in place at the time they are officially accepted into their programs. Please review the College Bulletin for the relevant academic year.

Department of Journalism and the Writing Professions 646-312-3974

Department Chair: Professor Vera Haller

646-312-4338​

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Journalism and Journalistic Writing: Introduction

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Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Journalism is the practice of gathering, recording, verifying, and reporting on information of public importance. Though these general duties have been historically consistent, the particulars of the journalistic process have evolved as the ways information is collected, disseminated, and consumed have changed. Things like the invention of the printing press in the 15 th century, the ratification of the First Amendment in 1791, the completion of the first transatlantic telegraph cable in 1858,   the first televised presidential debates in 1960, and more have broadened the ways that journalists write (as well as the ways that their readers read). Today, journalists may perform a number of different roles. They still write traditional text-based pieces, but they may also film documentaries, record podcasts, create photo essays, help run 24-hour TV broadcasts, and keep the news at our fingertips via social media and the internet. Collectively, these various journalistic media help members of the public learn what is happening in the world so they may make informed decisions.

The most important difference between journalism and other forms of non-fiction writing is the idea of objectivity. Journalists are expected to keep an objective mindset at all times as they interview sources, research events, and write and report their stories. Their stories should not aim to persuade their readers but instead to inform. That is not to say you will never find an opinion in a newspaper—rather, journalists must be incredibly mindful of keeping subjectivity to pieces like editorials, columns, and other opinion-based content.

Similarly, journalists devote most of their efforts to working with primary sources, whereas a research paper or another non-fiction piece of writing might frequently consult an encyclopedia, a scholarly article, or another secondary or tertiary source. When a journalist is researching and writing their story, they will often interview a number of individuals—from politicians to the average citizen—to gain insight into what people have experienced, and the quotes journalists collect drive and shape their stories. 

The pages in this section aim to provide a brief overview of journalistic practices and standards, such as the ethics of collecting and reporting on information; writing conventions like the inverted pyramid and using Associated Press (AP) Style; and formatting and drafting journalistic content like press releases.

Journalism and Journalistic Writing

These resources provide an overview of journalistic writing with explanations of the most important and most often used elements of journalism and the Associated Press style. This resource, revised according to The Associated Press Stylebook 2012 , offers examples for the general format of AP style. For more information, please consult The Associated Press Stylebook 2012 , 47 th edition.

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Journalistic creativity: what is it (and how do you achieve it)?

journalism and creative writing in english summary

photo by Andrea Ottaviani

Karel van den Berg travels the world, asking one basic, but surprisingly challenging question: what is creativity ? (Looking up the definition in the dictionary might show that you don’t have it, whatever it may be.)

As a profession, journalism is based on pure fact and objectivity. The very notion of the trade is solidly grounded in the idea that journalists provide answers to the questions boggling the minds of curious readers. However, if we were to trust van den Berg, we would learn that “ intellectuals turn answers into questions. ” But this isn’t a subtle attempt at a covert offense to journalists.

“Journalism is one of the most creative professions you can find,” he says. His background in journalism started in 1988, but soon after, he wanted to be “better at breaking news”. Being confronted on a day to day basis by the trials of finding new story ideas in an increasingly “disruptive, challenging market” sparked another curiosity in him: where does imagination fit into the journalistic process?

“ Creativity is all about breaking thinking patterns ,” van den Berg says. But even he admits, that might be easier said than done.

Patterns are ubiquitous and “you need them to survive, from the day you are born.” Developing yourself means building patterns. That’s because they are made up of seven aspects of everyday life:

– Skill – Routine – Expertise -Logic & Reason – Assumption – Prejudice

These set notions represent the pillars of our society, and more than that, the background to our judgment and intuition. Disrupting these almost inborn instincts and values might leave us without a solid moral compass. But more importantly, it can haul us out of that dreaded writer’s block when the presses are running and the conventional frantic search for new angles didn’t yield results.

Boiling down the techniques of his book “ Pattern Breaking News – Handbook for journalistic ideation ,” Karel pinpointed the times and places where ideas get stuck.

“ Assumption is one of the greatest sources of killing ideas in journalism, ” he says, encouraging us to generally defer jumping to any conclusions. This is the process of separating creation from realization.

“The biggest problem in combining creativity with journalism is postponing your judgment, which is not natural to most journalists. Most of the times, we confuse critical thinking with good judgment. This is where the biggest challenge comes in.”

To prove his point that “ our observations are so focused they overlook other options, ” he played an awareness test video for the audience. We all fell for it. We clearly needed to do something about it.

Van den Berg thinks you can structure and organize creativity. Applied specifically to journalism, the creative process is made up of creative thinking and creative observation. Starting from the five famous “W questions” of news writing, the single trick to change the journalistic pattern into a creative technique is to add the word “else” at the end of each one, as in:

– Who else? – What else? – Where else? – When else? – Why else? – How else?

First thing to learn about the pains and pleasures of creative thinking is that the key is to never give up. But once you found the journalistic needle, don’t throw the haystack away – the trick is to combine good and bad ideas, instead of discarding them.

“Because creativity means breaking patterns, when you run out of answers is when you [have] reached the barriers of your preconceptions ,”  van den Berg said. “And even if you find a brilliant idea, don’t be satisfied too early in the process and don’t stop. Chances are there are many more ideas to come.”

When George Poultry set out to find the total number of narratives in world literature, he allegedly found there are only 36 main plotlines, each with variations. His discovery is echoed by Ronald Tobias, who later on found that there are also only 20 Hollywood master plots.

According to van den Berg, journalism revolves around a grand total of eighteen subjects .

“We need to find journalism in the way it used to be, or redefine it. We lost our monopoly on the news; we don’t own the media anymore. We need to find out how to create value to consumers, taxpayers, audiences,” he concedes.

“ We have to invent the future. ”

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Expert Commentary

Basic newswriting: Learn how to originate, research and write breaking-news stories

Syllabus for semester-long course on the fundamentals of covering and writing the news, including how identify a story, gather information efficiently and place it in a meaningful context.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by The Journalist's Resource, The Journalist's Resource January 22, 2010

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/home/syllabus-covering-the-news/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

This course introduces tomorrow’s journalists to the fundamentals of covering and writing news. Mastering these skills is no simple task. In an Internet age of instantaneous access, demand for high-quality accounts of fast-breaking news has never been greater. Nor has the temptation to cut corners and deliver something less.

To resist this temptation, reporters must acquire skills to identify a story and its essential elements, gather information efficiently, place it in a meaningful context, and write concise and compelling accounts, sometimes at breathtaking speed. The readings, discussions, exercises and assignments of this course are designed to help students acquire such skills and understand how to exercise them wisely.

Photo: Memorial to four slain Lakewood, Wash., police officers. The Seattle Times earned the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for their coverage of the crime.

Course objective

To give students the background and skills needed to originate, research, focus and craft clear, compelling and contextual accounts of breaking news in a deadline environment.

Learning objectives

  • Build an understanding of the role news plays in American democracy.
  • Discuss basic journalistic principles such as accuracy, integrity and fairness.
  • Evaluate how practices such as rooting and stereotyping can undermine them.
  • Analyze what kinds of information make news and why.
  • Evaluate the elements of news by deconstructing award-winning stories.
  • Evaluate the sources and resources from which news content is drawn.
  • Analyze how information is attributed, quoted and paraphrased in news.
  • Gain competence in focusing a story’s dominant theme in a single sentence.
  • Introduce the structure, style and language of basic news writing.
  • Gain competence in building basic news stories, from lead through their close.
  • Gain confidence and competence in writing under deadline pressure.
  • Practice how to identify, background and contact appropriate sources.
  • Discuss and apply the skills needed to interview effectively.
  • Analyze data and how it is used and abused in news coverage.
  • Review basic math skills needed to evaluate and use statistics in news.
  • Report and write basic stories about news events on deadline.

Suggested reading

  • A standard textbook of the instructor’s choosing.
  • America ‘s Best Newspaper Writing , Roy Peter Clark and Christopher Scanlan, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006
  • The Elements of Journalism , Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, Three Rivers Press, 2001.
  • Talk Straight, Listen Carefully: The Art of Interviewing , M.L. Stein and Susan E. Paterno, Iowa State University Press, 2001
  • Math Tools for Journalists , Kathleen Woodruff Wickham, Marion Street Press, Inc., 2002
  • On Writing Well: 30th Anniversary Edition , William Zinsser, Collins, 2006
  • Associated Press Stylebook 2009 , Associated Press, Basic Books, 2009

Weekly schedule and exercises (13-week course)

We encourage faculty to assign students to read on their own Kovach and Rosentiel’s The Elements of Journalism in its entirety during the early phase of the course. Only a few chapters of their book are explicitly assigned for the class sessions listed below.

The assumption for this syllabus is that the class meets twice weekly.

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 | Weeks 13/14

Week 1: Why journalism matters

Previous week | Next week | Back to top

Class 1: The role of journalism in society

The word journalism elicits considerable confusion in contemporary American society. Citizens often confuse the role of reporting with that of advocacy. They mistake those who promote opinions or push their personal agendas on cable news or in the blogosphere for those who report. But reporters play a different role: that of gatherer of evidence, unbiased and unvarnished, placed in a context of past events that gives current events weight beyond the ways opinion leaders or propagandists might misinterpret or exploit them.

This session’s discussion will focus on the traditional role of journalism eloquently summarized by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in The Elements of Journalism . The class will then examine whether they believe that the journalist’s role has changed or needs to change in today’s news environment. What is the reporter’s role in contemporary society? Is objectivity, sometimes called fairness, an antiquated concept or an essential one, as the authors argue, for maintaining a democratic society? How has the term been subverted? What are the reporter’s fundamental responsibilities? This discussion will touch on such fundamental issues as journalists’ obligation to the truth, their loyalty to the citizens who are their audience and the demands of their discipline to verify information, act independently, provide a forum for public discourse and seek not only competing viewpoints but carefully vetted facts that help establish which viewpoints are grounded in evidence.

Reading: Kovach and Rosenstiel, Chapter 1, and relevant pages of the course text

Assignments:

  • Students should compare the news reporting on a breaking political story in The Wall Street Journal , considered editorially conservative, and The New York Times , considered editorially liberal. They should write a two-page memo that considers the following questions: Do the stories emphasize the same information? Does either story appear to slant the news toward a particular perspective? How? Do the stories support the notion of fact-based journalism and unbiased reporting or do they appear to infuse opinion into news? Students should provide specific examples that support their conclusions.
  • Students should look for an example of reporting in any medium in which reporters appear have compromised the notion of fairness to intentionally or inadvertently espouse a point of view. What impact did the incorporation of such material have on the story? Did its inclusion have any effect on the reader’s perception of the story?

Class 2: Objectivity, fairness and contemporary confusion about both

In his book Discovering the News , Michael Schudson traced the roots of objectivity to the era following World War I and a desire by journalists to guard against the rapid growth of public relations practitioners intent on spinning the news. Objectivity was, and remains, an ideal, a method for guarding against spin and personal bias by examining all sides of a story and testing claims through a process of evidentiary verification. Practiced well, it attempts to find where something approaching truth lies in a sea of conflicting views. Today, objectivity often is mistaken for tit-for-tat journalism, in which the reporters only responsibility is to give equal weight to the conflicting views of different parties without regard for which, if any, are saying something approximating truth. This definition cedes the journalist’s responsibility to seek and verify evidence that informs the citizenry.

Focusing on the “Journalism of Verification” chapter in The Elements of Journalism , this class will review the evolution and transformation of concepts of objectivity and fairness and, using the homework assignment, consider how objectivity is being practiced and sometimes skewed in the contemporary new media.

Reading: Kovach and Rosenstiel, Chapter 4, and relevant pages of the course text.

Assignment: Students should evaluate stories on the front page and metro front of their daily newspaper. In a two-page memo, they should describe what elements of news judgment made the stories worthy of significant coverage and play. Finally, they should analyze whether, based on what else is in the paper, they believe the editors reached the right decision.

Week 2: Where news comes from

Class 1: News judgment

When editors sit down together to choose the top stories, they use experience and intuition. The beginner journalist, however, can acquire a sense of news judgment by evaluating news decisions through the filter of a variety of factors that influence news play. These factors range from traditional measures such as when the story took place and how close it was to the local readership area to more contemporary ones, such as the story’s educational value.

Using the assignment and the reading, students should evaluate what kinds of information make for interesting news stories and why.

In this session, instructors might consider discussing the layers of news from the simplest breaking news event to the purely enterprise investigative story.

Assignment: Students should read and deconstruct coverage of a major news event. One excellent source for quality examples is the site of the Pulitzer Prizes , which has a category for breaking news reporting. All students should read the same article (assigned by the instructor), and write a two- or three-page memo that describes how the story is organized, what information it contains and what sources of information it uses, both human and digital. Among the questions they should ask are:

  • Does the first (or lead) paragraph summarize the dominant point?
  • What specific information does the lead include?
  • What does it leave out?
  • How do the second and third paragraphs relate to the first paragraph and the information it contains? Do they give unrelated information, information that provides further details about what’s established in the lead paragraph or both?
  • Does the story at any time place the news into a broader context of similar events or past events? If so, when and how?
  • What information in the story is attributed , specifically tied to an individual or to documentary information from which it was taken? What information is not attributed? Where does the information appear in the sentence? Give examples of some of the ways the sources of information are identified? Give examples of the verbs of attribution that are chosen.
  • Where and how often in the story are people quoted, their exact words placed in quotation marks? What kind of information tends to be quoted — basic facts or more colorful commentary? What information that’s attributed is paraphrased , summing up what someone said but not in their exact words.
  • How is the story organized — by theme, by geography, by chronology (time) or by some other means?
  • What human sources are used in the story? Are some authorities? Are some experts? Are some ordinary people affected by the event? Who are some of the people in each category? What do they contribute to the story? Does the reporter (or reporters) rely on a single source or a wide range? Why do you think that’s the case?
  • What specific facts and details make the story more vivid to you? How do you think the reporter was able to gather those details?
  • What documents (paper or digital) are detailed in the story? Do they lend authority to the story? Why or why not?
  • Is any specific data (numbers, statistics) used in the story? What does it lend to the story? Would you be satisfied substituting words such as “many” or “few” for the specific numbers and statistics used? Why or why not?

Class 2: Deconstructing the story

By carefully deconstructing major news stories, students will begin to internalize some of the major principles of this course, from crafting and supporting the lead of a story to spreading a wide and authoritative net for information. This class will focus on the lessons of a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Reading: Clark/Scanlan, Pages 287-294

Assignment: Writers typically draft a focus statement after conceiving an idea and conducting preliminary research or reporting. This focus statement helps to set the direction of reporting and writing. Sometimes reporting dictates a change of direction. But the statement itself keeps the reporter from getting off course. Focus statements typically are 50 words or less and summarize the story’s central point. They work best when driven by a strong, active verb and written after preliminary reporting.

  • Students should write a focus statement that encapsulates the news of the Pulitzer Prize winning reporting the class critiqued.

Week 3: Finding the focus, building the lead

Class 1: News writing as a process

Student reporters often conceive of writing as something that begins only after all their reporting is finished. Such an approach often leaves gaps in information and leads the reporter to search broadly instead of with targeted depth. The best reporters begin thinking about story the minute they get an assignment. The approach they envision for telling the story informs their choice of whom they seek interviews with and what information they gather. This class will introduce students to writing as a process that begins with story concept and continues through initial research, focus, reporting, organizing and outlining, drafting and revising.

During this session, the class will review the focus statements written for homework in small breakout groups and then as a class. Professors are encouraged to draft and hand out a mock or real press release or hold a mock press conference from which students can draft a focus statement.

Reading: Zinsser, pages 1-45, Clark/Scanlan, pages 294-302, and relevant pages of the course text

Class 2: The language of news

Newswriting has its own sentence structure and syntax. Most sentences branch rightward, following a pattern of subject/active verb/object. Reporters choose simple, familiar words. They write spare, concise sentences. They try to make a single point in each. But journalistic writing is specific and concrete. While reporters generally avoid formal or fancy word choices and complex sentence structures, they do not write in generalities. They convey information. Each sentence builds on what came before. This class will center on the language of news, evaluating the language in selections from America’s Best Newspaper Writing , local newspapers or the Pulitzers.

Reading: Relevant pages of the course text

Assignment: Students should choose a traditional news lead they like and one they do not like from a local or national newspaper. In a one- or two-page memo, they should print the leads, summarize the stories and evaluate why they believe the leads were effective or not.

Week 4: Crafting the first sentence

Class 1: The lead

No sentence counts more than a story’s first sentence. In most direct news stories, it stands alone as the story’s lead. It must summarize the news, establish the storyline, convey specific information and do all this simply and succinctly. Readers confused or bored by the lead read no further. It takes practice to craft clear, concise and conversational leads. This week will be devoted to that practice.

Students should discuss the assigned leads in groups of three or four, with each group choosing one lead to read to the entire class. The class should then discuss the elements of effective leads (active voice; active verb; single, dominant theme; simple sentences) and write leads in practice exercises.

Assignment: Have students revise the leads they wrote in class and craft a second lead from fact patterns.

Class 2: The lead continued

Some leads snap or entice instead of summarize. When the news is neither urgent nor earnest, these can work well. Though this class will introduce students to other kinds of leads, instructors should continue to emphasize traditional leads, typically found atop breaking news stories.

Class time should largely be devoted to writing traditional news leads under a 15-minute deadline pressure. Students should then be encouraged to read their own leads aloud and critique classmates’ leads. At least one such exercise might focus on students writing a traditional lead and a less traditional lead from the same information.

Assignment: Students should find a political or international story that includes various types (direct and indirect) and levels (on-the-record, not for attribution and deep background) of attribution. They should write a one- or two-page memo describing and evaluating the attribution. Did the reporter make clear the affiliation of those who expressed opinions? Is information attributed to specific people by name? Are anonymous figures given the opportunity to criticize others by name? Is that fair?

Week 5: Establishing the credibility of news

Class 1: Attribution

All news is based on information, painstakingly gathered, verified and checked again. Even so, “truth” is an elusive concept. What reporters cobble together instead are facts and assertions drawn from interviews and documentary evidence.

To lend authority to this information and tell readers from where it comes, reporters attribute all information that is not established fact. It is neither necessary, for example, to attribute that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was first elected president in 1932 nor that he was elected four times. On the other hand, it would be necessary to attribute, at least indirectly, the claim that he was one of America’s best presidents. Why? Because that assertion is a matter of opinion.

In this session, students should learn about different levels of attribution, where attribution is best placed in a sentence, and why it can be crucial for the protection of the accused, the credibility of reporters and the authoritativeness of the story.

Assignment: Working from a fact pattern, students should write a lead that demands attribution.

Class 2: Quoting and paraphrasing

“Great quote,” ranks closely behind “great lead” in the pecking order of journalistic praise. Reporters listen for great quotes as intensely as piano tuners listen for the perfect pitch of middle C. But what makes a great quote? And when should reporters paraphrase instead?

This class should cover a range of issues surrounding the quoted word from what it is used to convey (color and emotion, not basic information) to how frequently quotes should be used and how long they should run on. Other issues include the use and abuse of partial quotes, when a quote is not a quote, and how to deal with rambling and ungrammatical subjects.

As an exercise, students might either interview the instructor or a classmate about an exciting personal experience. After their interviews, they should review their notes choose what they consider the three best quotes to include a story on the subject. They should then discuss why they chose them.

Assignment: After completing the reading, students should analyze a summary news story no more than 15 paragraphs long. In a two- or three-page memo, they should reprint the story and then evaluate whether the lead summarizes the news, whether the subsequent paragraphs elaborate on or “support” the lead, whether the story has a lead quote, whether it attributes effectively, whether it provides any context for the news and whether and how it incorporates secondary themes.

Week 6: The building blocks of basic stories

Class 1: Supporting the lead

Unlike stories told around a campfire or dinner table, news stories front load information. Such a structure delivers the most important information first and the least important last. If a news lead summarizes, the subsequent few paragraphs support or elaborate by providing details the lead may have merely suggested. So, for example, a story might lead with news that a 27-year-old unemployed chef has been arrested on charges of robbing the desk clerk of an upscale hotel near closing time. The second paragraph would “support” this lead with detail. It would name the arrested chef, identify the hotel and its address, elaborate on the charges and, perhaps, say exactly when the robbery took place and how. (It would not immediately name the desk clerk; too many specifics at once clutter the story.)

Wire service stories use a standard structure in building their stories. First comes the lead sentence. Then comes a sentence or two of lead support. Then comes a lead quote — spoken words that reinforce the story’s direction, emphasize the main theme and add color. During this class students should practice writing the lead through the lead quote on deadline. They should then read assignments aloud for critique by classmates and the professor.

Assignment: Using a fact pattern assigned by the instructor or taken from a text, students should write a story from the lead through the lead quote. They should determine whether the story needs context to support the lead and, if so, include it.

Class 2: When context matters

Sometimes a story’s importance rests on what came before. If one fancy restaurant closes its doors in the face of the faltering economy, it may warrant a few paragraphs mention. If it’s the fourth restaurant to close on the same block in the last two weeks, that’s likely front-page news. If two other restaurants closed last year, that might be worth noting in the story’s last sentence. It is far less important. Patterns provide context and, when significant, generally are mentioned either as part of the lead or in the support paragraph that immediately follows. This class will look at the difference between context — information needed near the top of a story to establish its significance as part of a broader pattern, and background — information that gives historical perspective but doesn’t define the news at hand.

Assignment: The course to this point has focused on writing the news. But reporters, of course, usually can’t write until they’ve reported. This typically starts with background research to establish what has come before, what hasn’t been covered well and who speaks with authority on an issue. Using databases such as Lexis/Nexis, students should background or read specific articles about an issue in science or policy that either is highlighted in the Policy Areas section of Journalist’s Resource website or is currently being researched on your campus. They should engage in this assignment knowing that a new development on the topic will be brought to light when they arrive at the next class.

Week 7: The reporter at work

Class 1: Research

Discuss the homework assignment. Where do reporters look to background an issue? How do they find documents, sources and resources that enable them to gather good information or identify key people who can help provide it? After the discussion, students should be given a study from the Policy Areas section of Journalist’s Resource website related to the subject they’ve been asked to explore.

The instructor should use this study to evaluate the nature structure of government/scientific reports. After giving students 15 minutes to scan the report, ask students to identify its most newsworthy point. Discuss what context might be needed to write a story about the study or report. Discuss what concepts or language students are having difficulty understanding.

Reading: Clark, Scanlan, pages 305-313, and relevant pages of the course text

Assignment: Students should (a) write a lead for a story based exclusively on the report (b) do additional background work related to the study in preparation for writing a full story on deadline. (c) translate at least one term used in the study that is not familiar to a lay audience.

Class 2: Writing the basic story on deadline

This class should begin with a discussion of the challenges of translating jargon and the importance of such translation in news reporting. Reporters translate by substituting a simple definition or, generally with the help of experts, comparing the unfamiliar to the familiar through use of analogy.

The remainder of the class should be devoted to writing a 15- to 20-line news report, based on the study, background research and, if one is available, a press release.

Reading: Pages 1-47 of Stein/Paterno, and relevant pages of the course text

Assignment: Prepare a list of questions that you would ask either the lead author of the study you wrote about on deadline or an expert who might offer an outside perspective.

Week 8: Effective interviewing

Class 1: Preparing and getting the interview

Successful interviews build from strong preparation. Reporters need to identify the right interview subjects, know what they’ve said before, interview them in a setting that makes them comfortable and ask questions that elicit interesting answers. Each step requires thought.

The professor should begin this class by critiquing some of the questions students drew up for homework. Are they open-ended or close-ended? Do they push beyond the obvious? Do they seek specific examples that explain the importance of the research or its applications? Do they probe the study’s potential weaknesses? Do they explore what directions the researcher might take next?

Discuss the readings and what steps reporters can take to background for an interview, track down a subject and prepare and rehearse questions in advance.

Reading: Stein/Paterno, pages 47-146, and relevant pages of the course text

Assignment: Students should prepare to interview their professor about his or her approach to and philosophy of teaching. Before crafting their questions, the students should background the instructor’s syllabi, public course evaluations and any pertinent writings.

Class 2: The interview and its aftermath

The interview, says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jacqui Banaszynski, is a dance which the reporter leads but does so to music the interview subject chooses. Though reporters prepare and rehearse their interviews, they should never read the questions they’ve considered in advance and always be prepared to change directions. To hear the subject’s music, reporters must be more focused on the answers than their next question. Good listeners make good interviewers — good listeners, that is, who don’t forget that it is also their responsibility to also lead.

Divide the class. As a team, five students should interview the professor about his/her approach to teaching. Each of these five should build on the focus and question of the previous questioner. The rest of the class should critique the questions, their clarity and their focus. Are the questioners listening? Are they maintaining control? Are they following up? The class also should discuss the reading, paying particularly close attention to the dynamics of an interview, the pace of questions, the nature of questions, its close and the reporter’s responsibility once an interview ends.

Assignment: Students should be assigned to small groups and asked to critique the news stories classmates wrote on deadline during the previous class.

Week 9: Building the story

Class 1: Critiquing the story

The instructor should separate students into groups of two or three and tell them to read their news stories to one another aloud. After each reading, the listeners should discuss what they liked and struggled with as the story audience. The reader in each case should reflect on what he or she learned from the process of reading the story aloud.

The instructor then should distribute one or two of the class stories that provide good and bad examples of story structure, information selection, content, organization and writing. These should be critiqued as a class.

Assignment: Students, working in teams, should develop an angle for a news follow to the study or report they covered on deadline. Each team should write a focus statement for the story it is proposing.

Class 2: Following the news

The instructor should lead a discussion about how reporters “enterprise,” or find original angles or approaches, by looking to the corners of news, identifying patterns of news, establishing who is affected by news, investigating the “why” of news, and examining what comes next.

Students should be asked to discuss the ideas they’ve developed to follow the news story. These can be assigned as longer-term team final projects for the semester. As part of this discussion, the instructor can help students map their next steps.

Reading: Wickham, Chapters 1-4 and 7, and relevant pages of the course text

Assignment: Students should find a news report that uses data to support or develop its main point. They should consider what and how much data is used, whether it is clear, whether it’s cluttered and whether it answers their questions. They should bring the article and a brief memo analyzing it to class.

Week 10: Making sense of data and statistics

Class 1: Basic math and the journalist’s job

Many reporters don’t like math. But in their jobs, it is everywhere. Reporters must interpret political polls, calculate percentage change in everything from property taxes to real estate values, make sense of municipal bids and municipal budgets, and divine data in government reports.

First discuss some of the examples of good and bad use of data that students found in their homework. Then, using examples from Journalist’s Resource website, discuss good and poor use of data in news reporting. (Reporters, for example, should not overwhelm readers with paragraphs stuffed with statistics.) Finally lead students through some of the basic skills sets outlined in Wickham’s book, using her exercises to practice everything from calculating percentage change to interpreting polls.

Assignment: Give students a report or study linked to the Journalist’s Resource website that requires some degree of statistical evaluation or interpretation. Have students read the report and compile a list of questions they would ask to help them understand and interpret this data.

Class 2: The use and abuse of statistics

Discuss the students’ questions. Then evaluate one or more articles drawn from the report they’ve analyzed that attempt to make sense of the data in the study. Discuss what these articles do well and what they do poorly.

Reading: Zinsser, Chapter 13, “Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street,” Dan Barry, The New York Times

Week 11: The reporter as observer

Class 1: Using the senses

Veteran reporters covering an event don’t only return with facts, quotes and documents that support them. They fill their notebooks with details that capture what they’ve witnessed. They use all their senses, listening for telling snippets of conversation and dialogue, watching for images, details and actions that help bring readers to the scene. Details that develop character and place breathe vitality into news. But description for description’s sake merely clutters and obscures the news. Using the senses takes practice.

The class should deconstruct “Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street,” a remarkable journey around New Orleans a few days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. The story starts with one corpse, left to rot on a once-busy street and then pans the city as a camera might. The dead body serves as a metaphor for the rotting city, largely abandoned and without order.

Assignment: This is an exercise in observation. Students may not ask questions. Their task is to observe, listen and describe a short scene, a serendipitous vignette of day-to-day life. They should take up a perch in a lively location of their choosing — a student dining hall or gym, a street corner, a pool hall or bus stop or beauty salon, to name a few — wait and watch. When a small scene unfolds, one with beginning, middle and end, students should record it. They then should write a brief story describing the scene that unfolded, taking care to leave themselves and their opinions out of the story. This is pure observation, designed to build the tools of observation and description. These stories should be no longer than 200 words.

Class 2: Sharpening the story

Students should read their observation pieces aloud to a classmate. Both students should consider these questions: Do the words describe or characterize? Which words show and which words tell? What words are extraneous? Does the piece convey character through action? Does it have a clear beginning, middle and end? Students then should revise, shortening the original scene to no longer than 150 words. After the revision, the instructor should critique some of the students’ efforts.

Assignment: Using campus, governmental or media calendars, students should identify, background and prepare to cover a speech, press conference or other news event, preferably on a topic related to one of the research-based areas covered in the Policy Areas section of Journalist’s Resource website. Students should write a focus statement (50 words or less) for their story and draw up a list of some of the questions they intend to ask.

Week 12: Reporting on deadline

Class 1: Coaching the story

Meetings, press conferences and speeches serve as a staple for much news reporting. Reporters should arrive at such events knowledgeable about the key players, their past positions or research, and the issues these sources are likely discuss. Reporters can discover this information in various ways. They can research topic and speaker online and in journalistic databases, peruse past correspondence sent to public offices, and review the writings and statements of key speakers with the help of their assistants or secretaries.

In this class, the instructor should discuss the nature of event coverage, review students’ focus statements and questions, and offer suggestions about how they cover the events.

Assignment: Cover the event proposed in the class above and draft a 600-word story, double-spaced, based on its news and any context needed to understand it.

Class 2: Critiquing and revising the story

Students should exchange story drafts and suggest changes. After students revise, the instructor should lead a discussion about the challenges of reporting and writing live on deadline. These likely will include issues of access and understanding and challenges of writing around and through gaps of information.

Weeks 13/14: Coaching the final project

Previous week | Back to top

The final week or two of the class is reserved for drill in areas needing further development and for coaching students through the final reporting, drafting and revision of the enterprise stories off the study or report they covered in class.

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Journalism and creative writing: two opposite ends of the literary rope

writing

Chiemeka Evans ADINDU writes on the training on Longform Journalism and Creative Writing by Investigative Journalist and Youth/Children Advocate, Ejiro Umukoro

The training was done in such a way that it pricked me to start thinking differently about the media profession; its vastness and the unique ways one can excel, despite the trend. This is summarized and/or proven in the following points below.

The training was aimed to develop a rounded awareness of the media and to give students the skills and insight that equip them to develop further in their chosen career. It also focused on newsgathering, storytelling skills, the way design and story approach also influences different media was analysed.

From the lesson, it was established that Journalism and creative writing are two opposite ends of the literary rope. Their difference is grounded on the fact that journalism relies heavily on the truth, facts, current events, and knowledge. Creative writing, on the other hand, comprises much on art, fiction, and imagination.

Journalism focuses on projecting both unknown and popular trends in society and their views on trending and/or developmental issues in society. This gives more authority and prominence to the story; while creative writing on the other hand projects the writer’s opinion and imaginations which makes the story somewhat less factual as no authority may be quoted. In all, both journalism and creative writing employs literary creativity.

Creative writing gives freedom for the writer to explore their mind and express their thoughts. Creative writing relies mostly on self-expression. It gives you the chance to write your testimony of everything around you. It is limitless, entertaining, and sometimes informational (some novels are based on facts but they are still considered fiction since the writer has added his personal ideas into them, thus taking part in the novel’s creation). If you’re a creative writer, you can use a multitude of words as long as they all create the art that magnifies your story. Furthermore, creative writing takes you to places you’ve never known existed, acquaints you to characters more interesting than anyone you know in real life, and introduces you to devices more extraordinary than the tools used in this world.

Journalism and creative writing may be on the opposite ends of the literary rope, but each of them is helpful and necessary. Journalism lets us see the truth behind what we know. Creative writing reflects the truth in an art form and makes us envision it in another perspective. And for one to excel in any of them there is a need for self-development and commitment. Both pay! In fact, “…The knowledge and expertise of one can make you one hell of a writer”, says the trainer, Ejiro Umukoro.

Apart from the overlap between journalism and creative writing, similarities and differences, the different genres of journalism were also highlighted. They are Creative nonfiction Longform journalism, Narrative journalism, feature journalism and Documentary Journalism.

Some writing samples and stories were also analysed which made the class very interactive and practical.

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How to Develop Basic Journalism Skills

Last Updated: July 12, 2023

This article was co-authored by Diane Stubbs . Diane Stubbs is a Secondary English Teacher with over 22 years of experience teaching all high school grade levels and AP courses. She specializes in secondary education, classroom management, and educational technology. Diane earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Delaware and a Master of Education from Wesley College. This article has been viewed 32,074 times.

This is a brief summary of some of the important skills required of journalists. These are the skills that are taught in many entry-level college journalism classes. Having a good understanding of these fundamentals will help any writer decide if they want to pursue this type of writing.

Step 2 Organize the story:

  • Problems to avoid in using quotes include dull, obvious comments; remarks that echo a previous statement; quotes used as leads; a string of quotes run in sentence after sentence; curse words; and quotes taken out of context (where the words quoted can lead to a distortion of what the speaker was actually trying to say).
  • A famous example of off-the-record reporting occurred during the Watergate scandal in 1974. A high-ranking American government official (known to readers as "Deep Throat") spoke with journalists under the cloak of anonymity and offered information that led to the downfall of a president.
  • Using off-the-record sources may be unacceptable in some newsrooms. If you face that dilemma, try to get confirmation of your information from another source who is familiar with the story and who will let you cite them by name.

Step 8 Understand open-ended versus closed-ended questions:

  • Closed-ended questions can be answered either “yes” or “no” without further explanation. While useful for confirming information, they're not very effective at eliciting new information.
  • "Softball" questions have their place, too. They are easy, non-controversial queries aimed at developing a rapport with the source and helping them to relax.

Step 9 Understand active and passive voice:

  • In a passive sentence, the subject does nothing. Instead, it is acted upon. The active voice makes your writing stronger and livelier. It's the style that is used in most news articles. For example, "the girls ate the pizza" is an active sentence. "The pizza was eaten by the girls" is passive.

Step 10 Detach yourself as a writer by using

Community Q&A

Community Answer

  • Reporters should write in third person and avoid including their own opinions.
  • Reporters rewrite frequently to make their stories sound better. This includes replacing passive verbs with active ones, omitting redundancies and long, wordy sentences, and eliminating jargon and clichés. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
  • Reading the story aloud is a good way to find errors and awkward phrasing. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

journalism and creative writing in english summary

  • Above all, protect your sources' anonymity if they request it. That will help you (and the entire journalism profession) when trying to gather sensitive news in the future. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 0
  • Learning to be an effective journalist takes practice. News writing is different from the "term paper" writing style learned in many high school and college courses. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

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  • Inside Reporting, by Tim Harrower. McGraw-Hill, 2012.
  • Melvin Mencher's News Reporting and Writing, McGraw-Hill, 2010

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2.3: Writing the Feature Story

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" In any really good subject, one has only to probe deep enough to come to tears . "

- Edith Wharton

Hard news stories require a direct lede ("Gimme the facts, Conrad, I wanna know what happened!") as the immediacy of events provokes the readers' desire for information. A feature story, by contrast, floats free; it is dreamed up by an editor or reporter who stumbles onto something, or more likely someone, and thinks, Well, there could be a story here. The story may be timely, with a news peg (It's opening day at that little swimming pond; let's send a reporter to check it out), or it may connect to nothing except a journalist's curiosity (Remember that kid, the basketball player who got shot? What's going on with him now?). But one thing every feature story should have is a heart, and the feature writer's job is to find that thing and show it beating.

You do this, first, by reporting and, specifically, by gathering details. I was once assigned to write a profile of a county commissioner who met me at the construction site of a new public library. I described how he plowed right toward me through the mud, never even hiking up his pants, and I guarantee you that anyone who read the rest of that article forgot—just as I have forgotten—every other thing I said about the man. I wrote a long story; it went on for columns and columns. I described the guy's job (as if writing his résumé), his "challenges" (his was a boring job), and, I presume, his life, but I don't remember now if he was married or single or straight or gay or happy or miserable or devoted to county commissioning or just going through the motions in order to get to the bocce pit, not that he played bocce, or maybe he did, I wouldn't know. I so completely failed to locate the heart of this man or show it beating that my story was totally DOA, kaput except for that one detail about the mud, which is the best way I know to teach you that details are what matter, details are the definition of "probing deep," and if you want to write feature stories, details are what you must collect, like butterflies, like stamps and coins. They are treasures.

As for how to write the feature story once you've done your reporting and gathered all those details, most of the old rules apply. Write tight. Write clean. Keep it simple; make it look easy. Do not think about yourself when you write—think about the story; give the readers the story, not your performance art in black on white.

But having said all that, I'll now say that writing features is different from writing hard news. Features can contain mood, atmosphere, emotion, and even irony, as well as information; thus, with features, you have more room in your writing for creativity, for style. I hate to confuse you by talking about mirrors again, but my editor-from-hell Andrew Gully used the image a bit differently and it struck me: He said when you write a story, you should think of yourself as a mirror and a sponge. You're a mirror as you accurately reflect the world of your story, and you're a sponge as you soak up all the emotion and humanity of the people in it. Then you return to the newsroom and squeeze all of that onto your keyboard.

Here is Gully agreeing to let a reporter write a feature story about a basketball player Gully knew who'd been shot:

"The kid was a lightening-fast athlete who could leap and twirl only a few week ago. Now, he cannot even walk, let alone soar. Healthy, paralyzed; great future, no future; happy, miserable.

If you are going to write this story well, the only way to pull it out is to dig far into the details: how an arch-foe said it was his left shoulder he always ducked a split second before he turned on the jets and blew by—'Even though I knew he was going to do it, I couldn't stop him.'

And how now the physical therapist rubs and massages his legs which are already starting to grow scrawny because of disuse, and those once telltale shoulders now have to be washed with antiseptic to prevent bed sores.

Details, details, details. The look on his mother's face when he isn't watching. The sound of the hammers as basketball players build a wheelchair ramp at their teammate's home, and the simple yet intimate ways they discuss what happened to him.

Features should be narratives, storytelling with lots of color, with soul and taste and feel. And even with delayed leads, they must capture an essence of the real story.

How do you write them? Watch, listen, feel, describe."

Here's how to write a feature:

Most feature stories use a delayed lede , in which you don't deliver the main information right away but instead begin with something else. Delayed ledes can be narratives, descriptions, anecdotes, or even quotations. They should make the reader interested in the story, and that's enough said about that. Most textbooks say you should "pull the reader in," but I hate to offer that advice, soaked as we all are with media come-ons and teases that don't deliver anything at all. In my own case, whenever I deliberately tried to "pull the reader in," I overwrote lame little vignettes that I knew in my heart wouldn't pull in a tennis ball if the reader were a Golden Retriever.

I say better to just plunge right in. Plunge in with a narrative, which begins the tale in chronological order. Or plunge in by establishing the conflict or challenge. Even direct ledes can be great. Find a writer whose work you admire and do what they do. My favorite lede of all time was in a story about the Red Sox's march toward the pennant. The sportswriter described the team "stepping over the Yankees' carcass on its way to the playoffs." What a great choice of words.

The lede I hate the most is the question lede, because it's usually pointless: "Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to win the Kentucky Derby?" No, not really. But if I did wonder, I'd probably figure out fairly quickly that it feels great, like you just won a whole lot of money in front of a lot of screaming people. So if you must ask a question, be sure it's one for which you have a really good answer—something unusual, or truly interesting, or a laugh riot. For example: "Do you know what Gloria Swanson said to the agent inspecting her passport?"

"If I look like this," she said, "I need the trip."

Story Structures

With a hard news story, you really can't go wrong with the old inverted pyramid structure. It works for you and your readers alike: They want to know what's going on, and you want to get them the information.

With features, though, you're really telling your readers a story. And indeed, that's how you should think of a feature story—not as a report or a newspaper article, but as a proper story. Yes, you'll be telling the truth without bias, and yes, you'll be writing tightly. But in a feature story, your reader should see characters and setting, understand the conflict, feel the atmosphere and some suspense, and enjoy a beginning, middle, and end.

All sorts of narrative structures can help you craft such a compelling story. Here's a terrific and thorough description of the hourglass structure, with additional links to the "five boxes approach" and the "nut graf story" structures as well, from Chip Scanlan of the Poynter Institute.

You could also read the paper for a few days and cut out (or save on your computer) the feature stories you like most. How did the reporters craft them? Deconstruct the stories, and you'll find out. Figure out what's in the lede: Is it direct? Is it a narrative? A scene? What's in the next graf? And the next? Where do the quotes come in, and where is the central dilemma described? Write down precisely what's in each graf, and you'll see the story's structure. Notice the transitions and the repetition of certain words or images. Then use that excellent feature story as a model. And follow your instinct to tell your reader a compelling story.

Some Mistakes to Avoid

When I wrote my first newspaper article, for The Chronicle at Duke University, I wrote a profile of a blond-haired basketball player from Texas named Tate Armstrong. I conducted the interview in the school dining hall, where Tate and I chatted over lunch. He ate fried shrimp. He put them in his mouth, and he chewed them, and in my article, I actually described this. Now, clearly I had gone awry. Maybe people would be interested to read what the guy ate for lunch. But that he chewed? Clearly not.

So writing something totally boring and pointless is one way you can go awry when you're writing a feature story. There are several other ways as well.

You can err by turning a rich and complicated story into a cliché.

You can err by writing too many words that don't say a lot.

You can err by staying on the surface of things, describing only what anyone would see but what means very little—so the tree was 20 feet tall, so the ladder was aluminum, so the fireman climbed up the ladder using both hands (duh), so what? If the tree was 20 feet tall but very, very skinny and bending under the fireman's weight, okay; if the ladder was aluminum and slick from rain, okay; if the fireman climbed up the ladder using only one hand because in the other he held a tea cup and saucer with very hot Darjeeling tea (with which to coax the woman down from the limb), then ADD THE DETAIL. But if you offer pointless details, or if you just describe what anyone could see, you aren't contributing enough to the reader. It's your job to hunt for details others don't see, jot them in your notebook, evaluate them, and if they deserve to be included, describe them in your story.

And here's the worst mistake of all, the real skull-clutcher, which you must try your level best never to make: You must never write something that, while well written, you don't believe is absolutely true.

Let's deconstruct my hideous story about Tate Armstrong in order to consider this. What I should have written was: "At lunch, Tate ate a big plate of fried shrimp." That's a fairly boring sentence, but it's accurate. It gives specific information, which people like to read. I did consider writing, "He enjoyed them," because "enjoyed" is a verb with more life in it than "ate," but actually, to be perfectly honest, I couldn't really even say that Tate enjoyed the shrimp; he really didn't act one way or another about them. We were eating in the dining hall over blue plastic trays. The fact is that Tate might have actually hated the shrimp! He might have been gagging them down in order to increase his protein intake, because Tate even back then was a nutrition nut who ate handfuls of enormous vitamins from the health food shop (which frankly was kind of a creepy place back then, because it was small and crowded and smelled of patchouli). We all gave Tate a lot of grief for his vitamin regimen because it was so crunchy granola for a big-time jock. (Granted, we were idiots, but in our defense, Tate really was ahead of his time.)

And anyway, where was I? I was talking about how I did the right thing in that story by hunting around for a strong verb—you should always hunt for the verb—but I ended up choosing poorly and writing that Tate chewed his shrimp. Boring, boring, boring. But at least I didn't make the bigger mistake of writing that he enjoyed them, because that might not have been true.

Bottom line: Had I been less dense as a young reporter and written a better profile of my friend Tate, I would have included the fried shrimp, because actually, people like to read about what other people eat, and also what they wear, and how they speak and gesture, and whether they squint or limp, and what their tattoo says, and so on and so forth (Tate did not have a tattoo, by the way, though this paragraph might imply he had—back then, most college kids didn't). In any event, in a profile—as in any news story—details are key, so you must gather them. And verbs are terrific, so you must fish around for them in your mind and use them in your writing. Just remember that at all times, your details and your verbs must matter to the story—to bringing your subject to life—and they must always, always , ALWAYS (you already know this!) reveal the truth.

  • Brainstorm a local folo. Read a news story about a national event, and come up with an idea for a folo feature story that is local to your community. How does the national story affect the people or a person in your town? Think through the "story": Who are the characters? What is the setting? What is the conflict?
  • Go to a public place in your town. Stay there for one hour, and do not say anything to anyone. Notice and write down or photograph details. What does the sign say? What color is the slide? What is someone wearing? Write down the things you hear and overhear. Find a story. You may have to be patient until one unfolds. Who's the character? What's the setting? What's the conflict? What's the beginning, middle, and end? Write a mini feature story from your observations.
  • Make a list of feature stories for your school or town. If you're stuck on finding ideas, re-read Melissa Wantz's story brainstorming tips.

Book cover

Digital Communication and Learning pp 49–66 Cite as

The Need of Having Journalistic Creativity in Journalism Education: A Review of the Literature on Media Creativity and Look Beyond

  • Wendy Wing Lam Chan 7  
  • First Online: 13 April 2022

777 Accesses

Part of the book series: Educational Communications and Technology Yearbook ((ECTY))

The research about journalism has been dominated by a discourse of media professionalism and a myriad of research shed light on how it affects the industry’s development, and at the same time, political ideology, career pursuit, and personal desire have also been playing a crucial role in affecting the news industry. The success of both traditional and online journalism is often measured by the degree of creativity in presenting the fact; however, a lack of focus on creativity is brought into the media education. This paper critically examines the notion of journalistic creativity in relations to the twenty-first century development of journalism. The research aims are twofold: First, to investigate what are the antecedents mentioned in the prior research that drive the news industry to achieve creativity. Second, the paper points to the limited discussion of journalistic creativity in the academia and suggests there are underlying antecedents for new media and traditional creativity: political environment, journalists’ motivations, media professionalism and company’s support and resources, etc. which might explain why journalism needs creativity in this day and age, and thus media creativity should be brought into media education in the near future.

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Chan, W.W.L. (2022). The Need of Having Journalistic Creativity in Journalism Education: A Review of the Literature on Media Creativity and Look Beyond. In: Tso, A.W.B., Chan, A.Ck., Chan, W.W.L., Sidorko, P.E., Ma, W.W.K. (eds) Digital Communication and Learning. Educational Communications and Technology Yearbook. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8329-9_4

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IMAGES

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  1. The Intersection of Journalism and Creative Writing

    Likewise, fiction writers rely on six creative elements: point of view, characters, setting, plot, conflict and resolution. The writer carefully uses the six, crafting an entire story, whether it is 500 or 50,000 words. Just as journalistic writing must answer their six questions, creative writing must consider these six elements to build a story.

  2. Journalism Major

    Department of Journalism and the Writing Professions. The Journalism and Creative Writing specialization helps students develop the research, interviewing, writing, editing, and multimedia storytelling skills that are crucial to success across a broad spectrum of fields and professions in this information age.

  3. Journalistic Writing and Style

    Summary. The core of the journalistic style is the newswriting style. Writing news leans upon the objectivity paradigm that has triggered wide academic debate about the biases in defining journalism. The majority of the scholarship regarding the journalistic style and writing gathers around newspapers and news; however, many traditions of ...

  4. The meeting point between Journalism and creative writing

    In other words, both creative writing and Journalism makes use of the art of storytelling to give life to a given point of view, facts and information. The Convener Umukoro, also went further to state that a creative writer has the license to imagine, concoct, create and write stories, while a journalist on the other hand cannot do the same. ...

  5. Creative Writing & Journalism

    Keep it real : everything you need to know about researching and writing creative nonfiction by Lee Gutkind & Hattie Fletcher. Call Number: NYU Shanghai (China) Main Collection (PN3377.5.R45 K44 2008 ) ISBN: 9780393065619. Real feature writing: story shapes and writing strategies from the real world of journalism by Abraham Aamidor.

  6. Introduction

    The most important difference between journalism and other forms of non-fiction writing is the idea of objectivity. Journalists are expected to keep an objective mindset at all times as they interview sources, research events, and write and report their stories. Their stories should not aim to persuade their readers but instead to inform.

  7. Journalistic creativity: what is it (and how do you achieve it)?

    This is the process of separating creation from realization. "The biggest problem in combining creativity with journalism is postponing your judgment, which is not natural to most journalists. Most of the times, we confuse critical thinking with good judgment. This is where the biggest challenge comes in.".

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    Class 1: News writing as a process. Student reporters often conceive of writing as something that begins only after all their reporting is finished. Such an approach often leaves gaps in information and leads the reporter to search broadly instead of with targeted depth. The best reporters begin thinking about story the minute they get an ...

  9. Creative journalism

    Journalism is the factual portrayal of news and events with minimal analysis and interpretation. By contrast creative is original expressive and imaginative. Creative writing refers to imagination. The UNICEF indicated it wished to celebrate creative journalism by was of the Meena Media award, though the award is mainly divided into creative ...

  10. Journalism, Practice and … Poetry: Or the unexpected effects of

    Abstract. This article examines the role of creative writing in understanding journalism. It argues that non-academic writing—poetry in this case—can play a far more significant part in journalism research than that of an entertaining genre for disseminating a study's findings, mainly to audiences beyond academia.

  11. Journalism and creative writing: two opposite ends of the literary rope

    Journalism and creative writing may be on the opposite ends of the literary rope, but each of them is helpful and necessary. Journalism lets us see the truth behind what we know. Creative writing reflects the truth in an art form and makes us envision it in another perspective. And for one to excel in any of them there is a need for self ...

  12. Journalistic Writing

    Inverted Pyramid. In summary, here are tips to remember: Use short, simple words that most will understand. Use short sentences and short paragraphs. Eliminate unnecessary words that create redundancy. Use active voice sentences. State facts, NOT opinions. Do NOT stereotype: sexism, ageism, racism, etc. Arrange information from most important ...

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    Biography. Matt Swaine is the Course Director for the MA in International Journalism at Cardiff University, where he teaches multimedia news and long-form feature writing. As a journalist he edited BBC Wildlife and Trail magazines and launched websites and magazines such as Trail Running and Outdoor Fitness.He spent two years as Lonely Planet's Editorial and Product Development Director, and ...

  14. How to Develop Basic Journalism Skills: 12 Steps (with Pictures)

    1. Learn to write with the "5 W's": who, what, where, when, why and how. They are the building blocks of every news story. 2. Organize the story: Carefully and logically organize the article after you write the lead. (See below.) This often involves the use of interview quotations. 3. Write the main part of your story in the "inverted ...

  15. Journalism, Practice and … Poetry: Or the unexpected effects of

    This article examines the role of creative writing in understanding journalism. It argues that non-academic writing—poetry in this case—can play a far more significant part in journalism ...

  16. 2.3: Writing the Feature Story

    If you're stuck on finding ideas, re-read Melissa Wantz's story brainstorming tips. This page titled 2.3: Writing the Feature Story is shared under a CK-12 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by CK-12 Foundation via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is ...

  17. Journalism & Creative Writing

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  18. What is narrative journalism? A systematic review and an empirical

    However, little is known about actual audience responses to narrative journalism and its true engaging impact (Van Krieken, 2019).An important reason for this knowledge gap is the lack of a clear and generally accepted definition of the genre (Roberts and Giles, 2014).A variety of definitions has been proposed, resulting in a broad palette of concepts associated with the genre but without ...

  19. The Need of Having Journalistic Creativity in Journalism Education: A

    The research about journalism has been dominated by a discourse of media professionalism and a myriad of research shed light on how it affects the industry's development, and at the same time, political ideology, career pursuit, and personal desire have also been playing a crucial role in affecting the news industry. The success of both traditional and online journalism is often measured by ...

  20. Literature vs Journalism: When To Use Each One In Writing?

    When using "journalism" in a sentence, here are some tips to keep in mind: Use "journalism" to refer to the profession or activity of reporting news and current events. Example: She studied journalism in college and now works as a reporter for a major news outlet. Avoid using "journalism" to refer to creative writing or works of ...

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