1.

Hard News vs Soft News

a.
2. Legacy Media: traditional media outlets
3. Interviewing
4. Quotes
a. Partial Quotes: a word or fragment of a person’s words, partially attribute
b. Direct Quotes: exactly what the person said with quotes, and attribution
c. Don’t use them for straight facts
5. Attribution is where your information is coming from
6. Off the record:
a. Off the record. You may not use the information.
b. Not for attribution. You may use the information but with no reference to its
source.
c. Background. You may use it with a general title for a source (for example, “a
White House aide said”).
d. Deep background. You may use the information, but you may not indicate any
source.
7. Inverted Pyramid
a. Lead:
i. Standard: Summary
ii. Delayed ID
iii. Multiple Elements
iv. You
b. Supporting Info with Quotes
c. Less Important Supporting info with Quotes
d. Background
e. Kicker
8. Multiple Elements Story/Lead
a. Multiple-element stories are most commonly used in reporting on the
proceedings of councils, boards, commissions, legislatures and courts. These
bodies act on numerous subjects in one sitting. Frequently, their actions are
unrelated, and more than one action is often important enough to merit
attention in the story.
b. Multiple elements lead/one element and then go in different elements
9. Speeches
a. Easy to cover what speaker said, you need to know details about the speaker,
quotes from speaker, use an active voice, use the 5 Ws, you can often get a
transcript
10. News Conferences/Press conferences and speeches can be planned
a. Most important for seating
b. Wear bright colors
c. Have questions read
11. Meetings cannot be planned
 a. Always look for evidence to support
b. Open sunshine laws
c. Atmosphere
d. Location
e. What’s going to happen at the next
f. Reactions
12. First Amendment: Journalists are protected because of this bc they have the right to
access public places to gather and disseminate news
a. Press
b. Assembly
c. Speech
d. Petition
e. Religion
13. Open Meetings
a. Sunshine laws: we have the right to access public documents and have the right
to access public meetings
14. Deceit: not identifying yourself as a journalist, on the record with people
15. Privilege: absolute privilege and qualified privilege
a. Absolute: Outlandish, can throw out informato
16. Privacy: no one has an absolute to privacy, in personal meetings
17. Meetings: governmental meetings are open to the meetings
18. Criminal cases: when you have broken a criminal law
19. Prepublication Review:
a. Not the same as the editing process
b. When you go back to a source before it goes public
c. Avoid this – the source should not have control over what is said
d. We want the public to know that we are in charge of the articles that are being
published
20. Ethical Philosophies:
a. Different ethics
b. Categorical imperatives
21. 10 Principles of Journalism
a. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.
b. Its first loyalty is to citizens.
c. Its essence is a discipline of verification.
d. Its practitioners must maintain independence from those they cover.
e. Journalism must serve as an independent monitor of power.
f. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
g. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant.
h. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
i. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.
j. Citizens, too, have rights and responsibilities when it comes to the news.
22. Privilege
 a. Absolute: to say whatever they like when they are acting in their official
capacities.
b. Qualified: report on what those officials say during official proceedings. The
qualification is that the reports must be full, accurate and “neutral reporting.”
23. Ethical Philosophies
a. Ethics are guidelines: mix of personal ideology and professional standards of
practices
i. Deception
ii. Conflict of Interest
iii. Have a strong conviction
iv. Fabrication
v. Theft
vi. Burning a source
vii. Plagiarizing
24. Nut graf: A paragraph that summarizes the key element or elements of a story. Nut
paragraphs usually are found in stories not written in inverted pyramid form.
25. Lead:
a. Delayed
26. Journalism
a. Kabob: timmy story – start with anecdote and then move into the nut graf
b. Martini: inverted pyramid and then into chronological events of what happened
27. Privacy:
a. Can’t name juvenile offenders
b. Sexual Orientation
c. Victims and their families
28. Fair Use allows Journalists use a limited of copyrighted material if the story is
newsworthy
29. Copyrighted
a. Copyrightable works are protected from the moment they are fixed in tangible
form, whether published or unpublished. Copyright protection begins with a
work’s “creation and … endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and
70 years after the author’s death.” Works for hire and anonymous and
pseudonymous works are protected for 95 years from publication or 120 years
from creation, whichever is shorter.