Course Description: Prerequisite: JOMC 153. Exercise in news gathering, interviewing and writing news for print media.

Required Texts:
An Introduction to News Reporting, Jan Johnson Yopp & Beth A. Haller
Covering Crime and Justice (A guide for journalists) (sections 1 & 2)
Covering Criminal Justice Vol. II (A resource guide for journalists) (sections 1 & 2)
Best Practices for Newspaper Journalists, Robert J. Haiman a Freedom Forum handbook (sections 1 & 2)
The Associated Press Stylebook (all sections)
Stylebook (School of JOMC) (all sections)
There will also be a number of handouts and Internet downloads.
Internet Materials: Some material will be sent to students via email on the Internet, or through the course listserv. All students officially registered for the class are included on the listserv with their UNC-CH email address. Students who wish to use another email address must notify the instructor immediately. Course materials for Professor Amana are also available on his Web site: http://www.unc.edu/~haman.

Course Structure: Daily classes and a number of Monday afternoon seminars are required of all sections. Classes include lectures and discussions based on the required and reserve textbook readings; Monday seminars; periodic handouts; student papers; local, national and international events; and occasional guest speakers.

In addition to mandatory class attendance, students are required to participate one evening as telephone interviewers in the annual Carolina Poll. Further details on the poll and student participation will be given by the instructor. Students are also required to complete:

a beat report that outlines and evaluates the beat covered by the student reporter
at least 10 hard-news stories
a larger, final-project, enterprise-reporting series
a written examination
occasional news quizzes

General Background: Public affairs reporting can include almost anything that deals with the appropriation, distribution, handling or expenditure of public funds. It includes reports on all public and quasi-public agencies, organizations and institutions. It also includes reports on the community organizations affected by public institutions. Under the umbrella of public-affairs reporting are city, county and state governments; local authority districts (e.g. OWASA, TTA, Airport Authority, etc.); politics; elections, the courts; schools; urban affairs, the environment; and such social areas as minority and women's affairs, consumer affairs, public health, etc. Since all topics cannot be covered in this course, current events will have an impact on the direction and focus of reporting topics, which will be determined by the instructors.

   4 Beat                                          1 Court
   2 Town Council or Board of Aldermen meetings    2 Police/crime
     (when not a part of the beat)                 1 Survey/poll or election story 

A story that fulfills more than one requirement (where, for example, a town meeting focuses on the education beat) does not release the student from writing 10 stories -- a story is due on each of the days specified on the daily syllabus -- but it offers the student an opportunity to write a free story.

Sources: All stories will make use of a combination of sources, including public documents, interviews, library and Internet research, backgrounding and objective reportorial observation. All stories must use at least three different sources, which will be identified at the end of each story by name and, if applicable, by telephone number.

One source may be a student's observation of a meeting, hearing, news conference, etc., but none of the speakers or participants at such events may be used as individual sources unless they are interviewed separately before or after the event.

Students should strive to add different sources in their followup stories. Repeated sources should be used only when relevant or necessary. Be sure to read the School's policy on sources, off-the-record and attribution in your Stylebook.

The Beat Report is a detailed, 3- to 5-page memo from the student-reporter to the instructor-editor that outlines a specific beat, its chief officials and newsmakers, elected or appointed bodies, and that speculates on the likely news stories that will break during the semester. To complete this assignment, students may rely on handouts, calendars, interviews, Internet sources, directories, etc.

Beat Assignments: Four assignments will be written from a beat selected by students and the instructor at the beginning of the semester. The beats from which students will choose include:

	Town Government (Chapel Hill)  Business/Labor      Social Services	
	Town Government (Carrboro)     Minority Affairs    Women's Issues
	Education                      OWASA               Durham Police
	Housing & Development          Science & Medicine
Other beats approved by the instructor.

Early in the semester students will be asked to make their beat preferences. The instructor will make a final decision on beat assignments.

Mechanical Requirements: Reporting assignments must be two to three pages long, prepared on 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper on a 60-space line with one-inch margins. They will be typed, double-spaced, copyedited with traditional copy marks and symbols, and submitted on or before the daily deadline dates.

The assignment requires the use of at least six sources, each of which will be identified by name, title and telephone number at the end of the story.

The final project assignment is due Monday, Dec. 11, by 3 p.m. for section 1 and on Friday, Dec. 8, by 7 p.m. for section 2.

Robin Clark Experience A $3,500 award is granted annually to a JOMC student to research and write a story by "exploring, traveling and meeting people." Application deadline is March 1.

Eugene L. Roberts Jr. Prize A $5,500 award is granted annually to a JOMC undergraduate print/photojournalism major to research and write a "Gene Roberts-type [enterprise] story." the student must be returning for at least one semester when he or she will research and write the story in JOMC 97, "Independent Study," supervised by a faculty member for three credits. Application deadline is March 1.

M.S. Van Hecke Award A $3, 250 award honors M.S. Van Hecke, a 1948 graduate of the School and former business reporter for The Charlotte Observer. It goes to a returning undergraduate or graduate student interested in a career in business reporting. Application deadline is Oct. 1.

(For more information on these and other JOMC awards, see: http://www.jomc.unc.edu/academicprograms/undergraduate/scholarships.html )

Published Articles: Students are encouraged to write stories that have the possibility of being published in one of the local newspapers, but stories will not receive grades for being published.

Grading:
Students are graded on their reporting and writing skills. Grade A reporting with careless punctuation and grammar errors could receive a mediocre or failing grade. Students also will be rewarded for difficult-to-get or highly important sources.

When deadlines are missed the assignment may be turned in on the next scheduled class period, at a one-grade reduction. Assignments not received by either of these deadlines will receive a zero. Grading for sections 1 & 2 is as follows:

	A = 95 or above      B+= 89-91        C+= 79-81      D+= 69-71
	A-= 92-94            B = 85-88        C = 75-78      D = 65-68
                             B-= 82-84        C-= 72-74      D-= 62-64