J0: Digital TV and the World Practicum: Myanmar

Select students who successfully complete the J288 Digital TV and the World: Burmese in America and J298 Reporting on MYANMAR: The generals, the Lady and grassroots activists courses will be eligible to compete for slots in a summer or winter professional reporting practicum in Myanmar, also known as Burma, with the independent, non-profit, Center for Digital TV and the World, a project of the Tides Center. A few professional journalists and multimedia reporters from across the country also may join the practicum. Coverage will be aimed for publication by major media outlets. (Think New York Times, Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, NPR.) All reporters will work with strict deadlines and are expected to perform to the highest professional standards. The work will be rigorous and demanding.

NOTE: The reportage for the Myanmar practicum will take place for about a month starting May 11, 2013. Participation by permission of the Center for Digital TV and the World only. Participation is contingent upon full funding for the project, the issuance of journalistic visas by the government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, and availability for about a month from May. (It’s also possible the practicum will begin in December 2013.) Once in Myanmar, students can expect to spend the same amount on food and transportation as they would in Berkeley.


A travel kit will be required.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J100: Reporting the News

This course will teach students basic journalism skills and principles, provide practice writing quick-turnaround and in-depth feature stories, and introduce them to classic examples of reportage. Each week’s classes will be built around a different key journalism concept, and feature in-class and at-home writing or reporting exercises. Previous journalism experience not required but a strong background in writing or media studies is preferred. Students will be encouraged to pitch their work to local or on-campus publications.

Course format: Three hours of lecture per week.

J100 is an introductory, but fast-paced and writing-intensive, course that lays out basic journalistic skills and principles, provides practice with writing both quick-turnaround and in-depth feature stories, and introduces students to classic examples of feature writing.

Whether you’re a longstanding Daily Cal staffer or completely new to journalism, this class can work for you. If you’re a beginner, this is your crash course. If you’re a pro, use it to boost your skills to the next level (or two or three.) As an instructor, my goal is to push each of you according to your own pace and needs.

This is a graduate-level, application-only course available to no more than 15 students per semester, so expect to do graduate-level work. We'll be using many of the same materials and reporting assignments used by J-School grad students — nothing will be watered down. During the semester we’ll be visited by several J-School instructors and other working reporters to talk to you about life in the field.

The course is modular, so you will build basic skills one at a time while working towards more ambitious projects and sampling different types of feature writing. Each week will focus on a key journalism concept or kind of story structure, and will include several readings, in-class discussions and some kind of writing or reporting challenge related to the week’s theme. This is a lively (and small) seminar-style class, so your participation is vital to class discussions. Dissent, debate and the occasional crackpot theory highly encouraged.

The major method of instructor feedback in this course is in the editing of your assignments; they will be edited much more closely than you may have experienced in other courses. Writing (and rewriting) is the way we reporters learn.

Deadline to apply is December 30, 2012.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: This class is for undergraduate students only. Enrollment is done by application, see below. If you are interested in enrolling in this class you will need to provide a short letter addressed to Kara Platoni telling her why you are interested in journalism, how it fits into your career goals or area of study, and any additional information about previous non-fiction writing experience, whether that be reporting, blogging, research papers or other scholarly work/your thesis, writing essays or op-eds, contributing to a newsletter, etc. Also provide two writing samples, preferably non-fiction. You will send your brief letter as an email to applytoj100@gmail.com with the two work samples as word docs attached. Rolling Admissions, apply now. Early applications are considered first. This class is expected to fill up quickly.

J201: Community Site: Mission Local

J 201: Reporting in the Mission

Instructor, Marilyn Chase

This is a course for 1st and 2nd year graduate students who want to go deeper in writing about the Mission.

You’ve been through J200. You’ve mastered news reporting and writing. You’ve practiced your craft and published both assigned news and enterprise features in the community news websites like Mission Local.

Now in J201, you’ll get a chance to expand beyond the fundamentals of local reporting to embrace a wider variety of feature stories, including profiles, analytical stories, long form narrative and columns. You can experiment with voice, points of view, angles and even advocacy.

The point isn’t to encumber you with a lot of heavy reading. This is a practical course. So we’ll use as our text an array of local coverage by national and Bay Area media, reading critically to find the best and worst.

Our class will meet on Monday afternoons in the Mission from 4-6 pm. The workload isn’t especially onerous. You’ll propose and produce either one deadline feature a week, or a medium form or investigative piece once every two weeks. The idea is for your body of work here to continue our in-depth coverage of news, culture and community events in the Mission District, as well as to continue developing a portfolio of published work that you can be proud to submit as you apply for internships and jobs.

The goal of J201 is to use the tools forged in J200 to craft more sophisticated body of stories, to elevate your prose and technical skills, to create memorable stories in text, photos or video -- and have fun doing it.

Students will get support from our GSRs, our Fellow Helene Goupil, and web expert Jeremy Rue.
You have the option of taking the course for 4 credits including attendance at Monday afternoon lectures, or receiving 2 credits for writing stories alone. Either way, we look forward to seeing you in the Mission!

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J201: Community Sites: Covering Oakland and Richmond

We're looking for first and second years to take Oakland North and Richmond Confidential to the next level while using this experience for important training. Each week we'll have a lecture by Kara Platoni that tackles an important journalistic skill, and throughout the week we'll do the reporting that makes Richmond Confidential and Oakland North vibrant, well-read and trusted community news sources.

For first-year students, think of J201 as a seminar-like continuation of J200 that will go deeper into more advanced writing and reporting topics, help you improve your print and multimedia skills, and give you the flexibility to take on more ambitious or challenging reporting projects. For second-year students this is an invaluable chance to prepare for employment by working closely with an editor who can help you improve your writing and reporting chops; it’s also an excellent opportunity to build your speed, accuracy and ability to write clean copy on deadline. For everyone, this is a great way to build your online portfolio, showcasing work for future employers/internships and practicing reporting in a variety of media. Past students have said that this class prepares you for the real world because you are constantly producing new work and getting in-depth feedback from your editor.

We'll also work on news site invention and development. The beauty of the community sites is that they're infinitely flexible and can accommodate all kinds of experimentation. Throughout the semester we'll talk about community involvement, increasing the sites’ readership, and taking on innovative new class projects. Experimenting with new ways of presenting stories, and mixing up all kinds of media—text, photo, video, audio and interactive—is highly encouraged. Radio and TV students very welcome — we’re looking for students ready to produce awesome work.

This 4-unit class will meet once a week—we'll start by running the weekly budget and then follow up with a lecture and in-class activities. This class is not as time-consuming as J200. The average workload is about one reporting assignment per week. You may also be able to overlap reporting assignments with your work for other classes including business, environment or political reporting, narrative writing, photography, radio, TV or multimedia.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J210: Photo Essay

In this class we will examine the process of telling stories with pictures. You will be required to complete two picture stories/photo essays of your choice. We will talk about technique and editing, we will critique shooting assignments and cover the role of the picture editor, access, picture selection; cropping, sizing of pictures, writing of story proposals, pitching your idea, captioning text and layout. We will also survey the work of working photojournalists.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: Restrictions and Prerequisites: UC Journalism Graduate students. By portfolio review for others.

J213: Visual Storytelling: Advanced Documentary Projects-Real Eyes Magazine

You will work throughout the term on one in-depth group photo documentary project in class and we will produce Real Eyes Magazine. This course will focus on developing a personal photographic style, photo editing, sequencing and publication as well as concentrating on visual story telling focused on a single subject. Class will include historical overviews, writing text to accompany photographic work.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: UC Journalism Graduate students only. By portfolio review for others.

J216: Advanced Multimedia

This class is for students who are specializing in and want to work in multimedia or digital journalism and are doing a multimedia master's project.

In this class students will work on team multimedia projects and their individual multimedia master's projects or other multimedia packages, producing sophisticated websites that use various digital publishing applications and technologies. The projects will include a range of media and media formats, from multimedia presentations using video or audio slideshows, to databases and map mash-ups, to use of social media, mobile devices and other platforms for delivering content and encouraging citizen participation.

The class will be part weekly group discussions of and critiques by students and instructors of progress being made on the class team projects and the individual master's projects, and part guest lectures and reviews of best practices in digital journalism. The class is designed to give students an opportunity to apply the technical and conceptual skills learned in other multimedia classes to producing high-quality online journalism for their final master's projects.

Objective: by the end of the course students should know how to report and produce a complex story using a variety of different media formats, and have a deep understanding of digital media so they can become leaders in the digital news industry.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: This class is only for students who are doing multimedia master's projects for which Paul Grabowicz, Richard Koci-Hernandez or Jeremy Rue are the main advisors. These students must take this class in both the Fall and Spring semesters.

J219: MINI: The Journalist as Freelancer (7 Weeks)

Start Date February 4, 2013

A seven week mini-course that will provide students with basic skills that will help them understand building a freelance career; copyright, grants, accounting,taxes and insurance, pay, query letters and life questions that freelancers face. Taught by faculty member Ken Light with guest lecturers each discussing real life issues and solutions from the world of writing, documentary film, photography, cultural and magazine reporting and new media. Guest lecturers will include experts in filmmaking, reporting and grant and fund raising.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J219: MINI: The Frontline Associate Producer

First class is Wednesday February 6. The class is four weeks long.

Objective: Learn more about the specific tasks that you’ll be asked to do in your first production job after J-school.

Want to get a leg up on the competition when applying for jobs? Looking for a new skill?

The Associate Producer is a crucial job in any documentary and television magazine production. The AP is called upon to fulfill a wide range of duties: reporting, logistical planning, budget management, archival acquisition, organizing deliverables, and managing personalities—and each one has to be executed with precision for the project to be successful.

APs come from both print and production backgrounds. Should you find yourself working in production after graduating from J-school, you’ll be lucky to be an AP – part reporter, part problem solver. It’s the first step toward learning the totality of the production business. All this becomes more critical in the real broadcast world.

This course is open to students of all media backgrounds, not just the TV/Doc track. Students who envision any work in TV and documentary, expect to collaborate on any documentary projects, or are eager to explore other approaches to in-depth journalism are encouraged to enroll. The Investigative Reporting Program has hired students out of the television and documentary tracks as well as people with minimal video experience. Each has contributed to Frontline projects in meaningful ways.

Each week, instructors and guests will screen clips and discuss all the variables they had to consider in order to help bring the scenes or projects to fruition. Students will be given assignments based on that week’s lecture and discussion: plan an international shoot for your crew, organize a schedule, figure out insurance challenges, budget the project, report on aspects of the story, and others.

Discussion topics include: Contributing to the reporting and the producer’s vision; Collaborating; Production budgets and how they work; Planning and scheduling a shoot; Archival research; Fact checking; Wrapping up the project and securing rights.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J219: MINI: Photoshop Tutorial

This 1-unit course meets once a week for 8 weeks. The first meeting is Wednesday, January 30.

In this class students will complete two Photoshop tutorials on the lynda.com website. An Instructor and a GSR will be available during the class sessions to answer questions. There will be no formal instruction.

During the two-hour weekly sessions, students will work at their own pace through the two lynda.com tutorials, one on using Photoshop to improve images and the other on using Photoshop to design web pages. The school's photography program will pay for students subscriptions to the two lynda.com tutorials:

1. Photoshop CS6 Essential Training - estimated 10 hrs, 30 mins to complete
http://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Photoshop-CS6-Essential-Training/97619-2.html

2. Photoshop for Web Design - estimated 4 hours, 53 mins to complete
http://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Photoshop-for-Web-Design/105368-2.html

See the weekly schedule below to see what sections of each tutorial students are expected to complete each week.

This class must be taken pass/not pass. This class was scheduled in response to student demand, and it will be canceled if fewer than 7 students enroll.

The class meets 12 - 2 pm on Wednesdays from January 30 to March 20 in the upper newsroom/room 106

Objective: by the end of the class students will be proficient in using Photoshop to improve the quality of photographs and as a design tool to create web pages.

Other course information:

J-School course number is J219 Section 3
CCN is 48060

Restrictions and Prerequisites: This class must have 7 or more students registered by January 22, or it is subject to cancellation.

J219: MINI: Advanced Coding Group Study

NOTE: Due to scheduling conflict, this is NO LONGER a D3 class.

Class dates Jan. 24—March 21

This is not a class, but rather a group study on advanced coding techniques. It is designed to give students one-on-one interaction with the instructor for help on the projects they are currently working on. The format of this class will be casual, and the weekly schedule is open-ended based on the needs of the students.

Some lectures will be given, but they will be based solely on the topics requested by the students for their projects. Other classes will be a discussion format, and critiquing work produced by the students for class feedback each week.

PREREQUISITES: Students must have completed the Online Digital News Packages class, or the Programming for Journalists class.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: This class must have 7 or more students registered by January 22, or it is subject to cancellation.

J226: Telling Environmental Stories

The aim of this course is to produce environmental stories, stories with a strong environmental dimension, and straight science stories. Stories can assume different forms (several unrelated short pieces, a thematic series, one long piece). All media and combinations of media are welcome.

Preference will be given to journalism students but I encourage graduate students from other departments also to enroll. (Non-journalism students: please send me a brief email message describing your background, interests, and expectations of the class. Prior approval is necessary for admission.) This course is part of a larger initiative in the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism, one that assumes journalists and non-journalists have much to gain from each other during a semester-long dialogue about communicating effectively with the public.

In addition to the core story assignments, expect classroom critiques of student work, reviews of exemplary outside work, and conversations with accomplished journalists and writers. During the second half of the semester, journalism students will be matched with scientists familiar with the topics they’ve chosen to explore. Students, singly and in groups, will meet with the mentor-consultants to discuss story ideas, learn about current research, get advice on possible sources, and review drafts or rough cuts.

The class is open to all, both students focusing on environmental or science journalism and those exploring new ways to think about storytelling and potential subject matter. The skills required to analyze context, connection, consequence, and change—defining features of all environmental dilemmas—are the same ones needed to tackle any topic. And every beat you’ll ever cover will include an environmental dimension. This course will help you tell stories about technical and scientific matters with more clarity and authority. We’ll always assume that environmental storytelling can—and should strive to—be just as compelling, significant, and enduring as any other literary form.

Please arrive with ideas in mind. Be aware, however, that I may insist you abandon an idea, should you propose a story that doesn’t include the necessary thematic and narrative ingredients or requires traveling prohibitively long distances, depends on hard-to-access or excessively time-consuming sources, or otherwise entails a major impediment to reporting. Think globally, report locally.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: Priority registration will go to first choice narrative writing journalism studnets.

J228: Political Reporting: Sources and Methods Workshops

At the request of the first year class, this is a series of 4 workshops and 2 field trips designed to assist students working on complicated or ongoing political and government stories in all media. An important goal is to make sure students have an adult grounding in how local, state and federal government operate and how political pressures from all directions affect that operation. The sweet spot where that hot mess meets, often at election time and often on the California initiative ballot, is where you can find and tell the best stories.

The first workshop is January 29, the night of the President's State of the Union address, which we will watch and analyze FROM A REPORTING POINT OF VIEW together. The three following workshops will be in February, March and April, with exact dates determined by consensus of those participating. Students will have two opportunities during the semester to travel to Sacramento with the instructor to meet sources and learn to navigate the capitol for stories. That travel will require a full day in Sacramento, and we will try to set the dates at our first class.

WORKSHOP I - Figuring out the Feds. What do you have to know to follow stories and access sources based in Washington? How do you make a local story national and vice versa? What should you read and how much of it? A good gossip on how to follow electoral politics in off-years. STUDENTS SHOULD COME TO THE FIRST WORKSHOP WITH SOME IDEA OF THE STORY THEY WILL BE WORKSHOPPING.

WORKSHOP 2 Late February - Who Runs California? Who Owns California? How do you make them talk to you? How do you tell a numbers story in a way ordinary people can follow it? If you had an interview with the governor, what would you ask him? A Check-in on your stories.

WORKSHOP 3 Mid-March or early April, depending on spring break - All Politics is Local (and bad stuff flows downhill) - Finding and cultivating sources who know the big picture. How's the June ballot shaping up? Cornering our favorite lobbyists, consultants and bad actors. First draft of projects?

WORKSHOP 4 Early May - Prepping the BIG INTVU in print, radio, video; polling is the crack cocaine of journalism, but can you live without it and who do you trust? Presentation of projects and portfolios - where do you send them?

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J230: To Catch a Thief: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Business

Business reporting isn’t all pin stripes and spread sheets.

It’s about following the money: who’s making it, who’s losing it, creating jobs with it, or laying off workers to line their pockets with it. It’s about the creation of wealth: the resource that can power social progress -- or perpetuate class discrepancies.

It’s about the cycles of fear and greed that drive investments.

There’s no better time to delve into business reporting than now, in the wake of the Great Recession and recovery, amid business failures and bailouts, severe unemployment and slow job creation.

As a longtime reporter for the Wall Street Journal, I know that numbers can inspire fear and loathing in writers. But I’m also living proof that you can overcome math panic and aversion to understand what fuels companies to create the products and services we use, and the jobs that make our economy thrive.

Whether you're a feature writer fascinated by the entrepreneurial spirit, or an investigative reporter who wants to expose wrongdoing, you need tools to get started. If you want to understand what makes business tick, J230 can give you the tools to understand, report and publish stories that make a difference.

Your universe as a business reporter is vast and varied. It ranges from the rogues’ gallery of the business world’s dirty rotten scoundrels, to the investors who bring bright ideas from the incubator to the marketplace, to small creative community enterprises that you can profile.

Reporters in J230 break news on: social networking, community banking, futuristic moneymen and edgy restaurants that turn failure to success.

We aim to pitch business stories to our community websites Mission Local, Oakland North, and Richmond Confidential. In the process, you’ll build polished clips that enhance your resume and give you a jump on the job market.

Assignments include breaking news and color features, with an emphasis on enterprise stories that you initiate. Bring your ideas and pitches. Bay Area business beats include biotech, social networking, clean energy, design, tourism/entertainment real estate and the interface between politics and the economy. Guest speakers include business leaders to help build your source network, and financial journalists from publications like The Wall Street Journal who can share their job-finding tips.

J230 reporters have won plaudits for business stories that run the gamut from a profile of a start-up incubator housed in an old tin can factory in San Francisco’s Dogpatch district, to an award-winning feature on production problems in the organic beef industry in California – both published in the New York Times.

This course is also offered with the knowledge that that business publications -- and the business sections of general interest media -- continue to hire reporters who know their way around a financial report and a corporate board room. So this course is designed to be a practical addition to any journalist’s class schedule -- one that aims to enhance your employability.

So join us Thursday afternoons from 2p.m. to 5 p.m.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J242: Renegades, Underdogs, Madmen: The Magazine Profile

Profiles are a remarkably versatile form. They can anchor the exploration of a novel world (the kingpin behind the spam email business), illuminate the dark side of human behavior (the prison psychologist who devised the Army’s torture guidelines), or act as a gateway into an epic drama (the drug war in Mexico framed through the life of a professional hostage negotiator). They’re also marketable – magazine editors love them – and unusually fun. At its purest, a good profile often becomes a kind of detective story: the investigation of another person’s hidden, and potentially contradictory, internal world. So how do you, the ordinary writer without Hollywood connections, figure out which of the 7 billion other people on the planet are worth profiling? We’ll discuss a range of classic profile types, including the Underdog, the Train Wreck, the Renegade, and the Savant.

Because profiles don’t always have an obvious plot, they also require a different strategy in order to build interest and sustain momentum. We’ll take a close look at how to do this, starting with the critical choice of who to write about. (As Ira Glass once observed, “It’s true that everybody has a story to tell. But most of those stories aren’t very interesting.”) Connecting to, but remaining independent from, the person you’re writing about can also be tricky, both personally and ethically – an issue we’ll discuss as it relates to your own work. We’ll also host various guests - including writers and editors from the New Yorker, Wired, and the New York Times Magazine - to get the dish on game-changing profiles from the people who wrote them.

Expectations: Writing assignments will begin with a formal pitch, and will finish with a 3000-word profile, the subject of which will have to be defended via in-class magazine-style editorial meetings. We’ll edit the original pitch over the semester as the story sharpens, with an eye to magazine submission. We will also be doing several writing and editing exercises both in and out of class. Intermediate deadlines are as important as final deadlines, and class participation is vital. No absences without prior agreement, except in emergency.

Readings will be wide-ranging, eccentric, and sometimes funny. All will shed light on how to represent another person with insight and nuance: a skill central to most any long-form story. There are no anthologies to buy for this course, and most readings will be emailed to the class list the week they’re assigned. Please print a copy of each and bring it to class, since we’ll often be marking up the print copy.

Students should come to the first class with 3-5 reasonable ideas. These can be unresearched, but should be solid enough that you can give a two-sentence summary of the story as you see it. The person involved can be specific or generic -- e.g. “an Iraq vet with PTSD” is acceptable as long as it’s part of a more specific idea -- but plausibility is key.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: Students should come to the first class with 3-5 reasonable ideas. These can be unresearched, but should be solid enough that you can give a two-sentence summary of the story as you see it. The person involved can be specific or generic (e.g. an Iraq vet with PTSD is acceptable as long as it's part of a more specific idea) but plausibility is key. This means that zero credit will be given for "Osama bin Laden" or "Cameron Diaz" unless you're in contact with either or both of them. (If you are in contact with them, please email me immediately.)

J243: Narrative Writing

News is news: “Top Cop to Wed Mobster Moll,” “U.S., Canada Declare War,” “J-School Lecturer Nabbed in Embezzlement Scam.” A reader will read to the end of such a story no matter how badly it’s written. But how do you attract the attention of a busy, distracted reader to a story that doesn’t contain such a revelation? That’s the art of narrative writing. It’s an art which requires not only accurate, conscientious reporting, but carefully thinking out your storytelling strategy.
If you want your readers to stay with you for a newspaper feature story or a full-length magazine piece, you have to learn what good storytellers have been doing for thousands of years to make people sit up and listen. You can always tell the difference between writing that makes you turn the page eagerly and writing that makes your eyes glaze over. This course is designed to help you write the first and not the second. Don't take this class unless you like to write, like to rewrite--and like to read carefully and analytically. There will be at least three writing assignments of increasing length, including one profile; the last assignment is a magazine-length piece of 3,000 to 5,000 words. Every week we will also read closely a number of published pieces to see what can be learned from the very best writers practicing their craft. The reading will include reportage, memoir, fiction and possibly radio scripts, because good writing knows no boundaries and we can learn a lot from people working in other genres. Reading and writing assignments are considerable, so if you're worried about there being too many demands on your time this semester, or anticipate missing more than one class, I would suggest another course.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: 1) No laptops in class, please; they impede discussion. If you believe that you have a Constitutional right to be connected to the Internet at all times, this is not the class for you. 2) J-School Visiting Scholars are welcome take the class if there is space (which will be determined by Mid-December)—but only if you plan to do all the reading and writing assignments. This is a writing workshop, not a lecture course. 3) No undergraduates. 4) Please arrive on the first day with a couple of ideas for stories you think you want to work on. That’s a definition of a good journalist at all times, but especially in this course, where you’ll be choosing the topics you write about.

J254: The Reported Column

So you know how to write a news lead, a sassy blog, and maybe even the not-half-bad-top of a feature. Now you need to think about writing with perspective and authority, about how to go one level deeper in a voice very different from the neutral (or snarky) one you've developed so far. This is a course designed to help students sharpen their writing and analytical skills in a format that demands clarity of thought and economy of words. It is about public affairs in the very broadest sense. I am looking for keen observers of the human condition - cartoonists, sports enthusiasts, foodies, fashionistas, would-be humorists and critics of high and low culture. AND GRAD LEVEL POLICY STUDENTS!

We will begin where all good writing begins, with solid, efficient reporting on a range of social and cultural topics. We'll experiment with voice and style to see how pithy, insightful and profound we can be - about big issues and small ones - in about 400 (for broadcast commentary) to 800 polished words each week. Columnists, editorial writers and OP-Ed page editors and a radio producer will be popping in to critique our offerings. The idea is to develop both a body of work and a base of outlets. The reporting is serious and rigorous, but not onerous.

The first assignment is a reported RANT, so come to class all worked up about something.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J255: Law and Ethics

An introduction to the legal and ethical conflicts faced by working reporters. Half of the semester will concentrate on First Amendment and media law, including libel and slander, privacy, free press/fair trial conflicts, and civil lawsuits arising from controversial reporting methods. The remainder of the semester will focus on ethical dilemmas faced by reporters and editors. Using case studies, in-class argument, readings and guest lecturers, the course examines some of the murkier conflicts that don?t necessarily make it to court but nevertheless force difficult newsroom decision-making.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J260: Investigative Reporting for Print/TV

This class is designed to build on students' fundamental reporting and writing skills by learning the basics of investigative reporting. It is journalism that often bridges traditional beats to examine systems and institutions.

In this class, you will enhance your interviewing skills, learn the difference between newspaper and television interviews; learn how to set up a two-camera shoot; work with public records; and develop and protect sources.

In past years, students have been involved in production of "Frontline" films and Web sites. Past projects produced by the class include work on:

"Al Qaeda's New Front"
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/
"Secret History of the Credit Card"
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/
"Chasing the Sleeper Cell"
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sleeper/

Students will be required to become familiar with the development of investigative reporting and its place in American history.

The seminar will meet regularly on Fridays, 11-1, and occasionally at other times to accommodate special guests or lectures.

Students can propose projects for class credit and are encourage to incorporate the class in their master's projects.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J275: Intro to Radio

Write conversationally! Write powerfully!! Write for Radio!!!

Hone your writing skills; learn how to be a narrator; tell stories with sound.

J-275 is a hands-on, intensive preparation for the real world.
Students are required to cover general news stories and produce a weekly half-hour magazine program on deadline including a live newscast. In addition, students create weekly news features many of which have been picked up for local and national broadcast. Students rotate among assignments as anchor, reporter and producer. You learn how to build a newscast, write for radio, read for radio, and how to use digital technology to produce audio that engages the listener.

Be prepared for hard, but rewarding work that develops skills transferable to any medium!

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J283: Reporting for Television

This class will have some all day Thursday and Friday Lab days. Most days the class will end by Noon. Students can take Thursday and Friday afternoon classes, talk with Bob Calo for full details on the best way to set up your course schedule to avoid conflict.

J283 is the second part of a two-semester sequence that serves as the introduction to television news. It is a production laboratory course that meets all day Thursday and Friday throughout the spring term. Students will cover breaking news, and do enterprise reporting. In the second half of the semester, students produce two television news magazine programs. All programs are cablecast on Channel 25 in Berkeley, as well as UCTV and Worldlink TV by satellite. Students are gain proficiency in reporting, writing, producing and digital shooting and editing.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: J-School only. Successful completion of J282 and permission of instructors.

J284: Documentary Production

Journalism 284B is an intensive documentary workshop in which second year students complete their Masters Projects. We work with the styles of writing, editing, sound design, graphics, and finishing which are unique to documentary. The majority of our time this spring will be devoted to work-in-progress screenings and critiques of 2nd year documentary Masters Projects in assembly, rough cut, and fine cut form, in addition to lectures and demonstrations.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: By instructor permission only.

J285: Longform Television

J285 is a second year course in which students produce 5 to 10 minute non-fiction television magazine stories and create television magazine programs. In producing long form stories and magazine programs students develop their digital story telling skills by identifying compelling central characters and their interesting and newsworthy stories, connecting them to larger issues or common personal experiences, and experimenting with innovative styles and techniques. The two-semester course and final programs satisfy the Masters Project requirement.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: J-School students only. Successful completion of J282 and J283, proficiency in AVID editing and SONY DV cam, and permission of instructors. Class enrollment will be by waitlist only, priority will be given to students who selected TV/Doc as their first course preference.

J286: History of Documentary

The course covers the evolution of American documentary film from 1920 to the present, with special attention to long-form nonfiction for television and independent documentaries for theaters, broadcast, and the web. We will concentrate on the practical problems of making documentaries in the real world for a mass audience, with special attention to documentary materials, structure, and ethics. The course is prerequisite for graduate students who are considering specializing in documentary.

Occasional guest producer/directors may join us, TBA as available, to discuss their work.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: J-School TV students have priority, then other J-school students, then grad students from other departments, then undergrads.

J288: Digital TV and the World: Burmese in America

J288: Digital TV and the World: Burmese in America

Learn the basics of reporting for video web and broadcast coverage that focuses on slice-of-life and trend stories in America. Produce short, thoughtful works for distribution on the web, over the air, on mobile devices, and DVDs. The class will teach students to work with small format cameras and explore an array of storytelling techniques and editing styles. We aim to contribute to the development of a new corps of competent and dedicated digital journalists who can use electronic tools skillfully and function easily in the new multimedia workplace.

Students will learn to listen carefully to the voices of their subjects – people from Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Burmese Americans in California. Each student will produce at least two reports crafted for Web sites or other outlets. (Think New York Times, Washington Post, NewsHour, NPR.)

Students will learn the rudiments of digital production, reporting, and editing. The training will emphasize solid reporting, clear expression and original storytelling. This is a rigorous and time-consuming reporting and production course.
We wish to assemble a team of mature and dedicated players to create penetrating multimedia, cross-platform reports. The course is designed for first-year students with photography, broadcast storytelling, and multimedia reporting skills and DVD production experience or interest, who wish to report from America (and perhaps Asia) and who will be available to participate in a month-long overseas practicum beginning in mid-May or December 2013.

This course is designed to be taken in tandem with J298 Reporting on Myanmar. There is no guarantee that students who complete this course and the companion J298 background course will be selected for overseas travel.

DIGITAL TV AND THE WORLD is designed to train journalists to work as digital video and multimedia professionals. You will learn how to produce, shoot, write and edit stories for broadcast and for the web.

Those who produce superior work will be eligible to compete for slots in professional journalism practicum at the end of the semester in Myanmar, with the aim of filing for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The NewsHour, NPR or other outlets. You will be treated as professionals and are expected to produce broadcast and web reports on deadline that meet the highest standards of journalism.

The goal of the class will be to produce a four-minute video journalism profile of one person. Students will act as a one-person crew, including camera/audio recording, writing, and voice-over narration.

We will have training and preparation assignments each week (about 25 during the semester) leading to the final video report. The meeting of deadlines is a key component of each assignment. In addition to your four-minute profile, you will also be required first to produce a two-minute profile of another person.

Required individual script and video editing meetings will be scheduled as much as possible within the instructor’s regular office hours.

COST ESTIMATES: Purchases of equipment, software and supplies for this course and the practicum can be expensive. Generally, students arrive with their own Apple MacBook Pro laptops ($2,100), which they use throughout their time at the J-School. They must arrive with Adobe Premiere software, depending on the directions of the instructors. They also must buy mini-DV tape stock ($300) and personal hard drives ($100 to $450). Some also wish to install Adobe CS5 or other software for infographics and photo editing. Students pay for local transportation and food.

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Digital TV and the World Practicum: Myanmar

Select students who successfully complete the J288 and J298 courses will be eligible to compete for slots in a summer or winter professional reporting practicum in Myanmar, also known as Burma, with the independent, non-profit, Center for Digital TV and the World, a project of the Tides Center. A few professional journalists and multimedia reporters from across the country also may join the practicum. Coverage will be aimed for publication by major media outlets. (Think New York Times, Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, NPR.) All reporters will work with strict deadlines and are expected to perform to the highest professional standards. The work will be rigorous and demanding.

NOTE: The reportage for the Myanmar practicum will take place for about a month starting May 11, 2013. Participation by permission of the Center for Digital TV and the World only. Participation is contingent upon full funding for the project, the issuance of journalistic visas by the government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, and availability for about a month from May. (It’s also possible the practicum will begin in December 2013.) Once in Myanmar, students can expect to spend the same amount on food and transportation as they would in Berkeley.

A travel kit will be required.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: This course is by application only. This course is for graduate students only. Enrollment will be competitive and based on the merit of the application. All interested students should attend a special brown bag lunch meeting Tuesday, October 30 at 1230 in the J School courtyard AND make an appointment for an individual portfolio review session with the instructors by emailing digitvworld@yahoo.com. (Those who cannot make the initial October 30 session should now send an email to digitvworld@yahoo.com, and request a meeting.) The instructors will introduce the course, its application process, its requirements, its workload, its costs, and the possibility of participating in a separate overseas practicum in the summer or winter. Individual portfolio reviews will be held on Friday, November 16. This class is required for consideration for the summer practicum.

J294: Master's Project Seminar

J294 is a 2 semester course (1 unit/Fall, 1 unit/Spring). You must register for both semesters and it must be taken for a grade.

ADVISER CCN#
Bergman 48165
Bieder 48126
Calo 48168
Dobb 48177
Drummond 48135
Else 48138
Gorney 48141
Grabowicz 48144
Hernandez 48174
Kahn 48162
Light 48153
Rasky 48159
Rue 48129

Restrictions and Prerequisites: Limited to Journalism students only.

J297: Internship Credit

Students receive one or two units of credit for the internships. Documentation required from both the student and from supervisor regarding internship responsibilities, hours, etc.

Second Year Students will sign up for this class to receive credit for their summer internship requirement.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J298: Making a Magazine: Class and Lab

(If you are enrolled in Making a Magazine, you must also sign up for Making a Magazine Lab--Registration Details to Come.)

This course is part seminar and part lab: you will experience what is like to work on the top editorial staff of a magazine, in this case producing the 2013 annual issue of Brink, the award-winning J-School magazine (two time winner: Best Student Magazine in America—The Society of Professional Journalists). Our identity: strongly based in this region, Northern California, as seen by you, young journalists capturing your time and points of view.

This semester, we are producing not only a print magazine but also an expanded, interactive, multimedia version (brinkmag.org). Think Brink crossed with The Ration, as a website with iPad/Iphone versions. For the print version, we have forged a mentor-mentee relationship with Mother Jones magazine, and especially their creative director, Tim Luddy, who will work with students to create a fresh new graphic design just for this issue. Also expect to see a lot of Richard Koci Hernandez as he guides us through the creative process of combining long-form text narratives with multi-media design and features, in a new, custom-built platform.

As student editors, you will fill the roles of senior editors, managing editor and executive editor, as well as photo, audio, multi-media and social media editors. In the Fall semester, much of our content was acquired from current and former J-School students, and revised to fit our identity. Now our mission is to creatively imagine, edit and finally showcase features of all kinds---text, photo essays or slideshows, video, infographics, and advanced multi-media.

We will pick up the process midstream, with a combination of editors from the first semester and very welcome new editors--continuing first with the line editing, fact-checking, and scrupulous polishing, copy-editing and proofreading -- essential skills for all literary work. (There will be close guidance from the instructors throughout the process, including a final top-edit of all articles.)

We will work with our art director and other mentors from our professional partner to come up with boxes, graphs and sidebars, punch up copy, and plan the use of photography and art. We’ll review a lot of professional magazine work, both in print and online, and decide what we want to emulate, while also learning about magazine jobs, timelines and budgets.

You will will help arrange photo-shoots, initiate conceptual photography, art and illustration, and consult on design and layout, learning to work with InDesign. You will also determine the cover image and learn the tricks to writing great headlines, sub-heads, and captions.

You will learn about all the stages of production for print and multimedia, from working with copy maps and dummies, copy spreadsheets, and several stages of proofs, finals, and Blues (last corrections).

On the website, you will learn how to manage InDesign files with WordPress and repurpose magazine art and design, while creating multi-media features.

At the end of this course you will have had memorable experiences of creative problem solving, upholding standards of written and visual excellence, and collaborative teamwork. You will be equipped to excel at any level of editorial production at a print or web-based magazine.

The most important thing to bring to this class is your enthusiasm for great magazines. At best, a magazine is a mosaic that is greater than the sum of its parts.

For more info or with any questions, feel free to contact Deirdre English at d.english@gmail.com or to 415-693-0877. THE SYLLABUS IS AVAILABLE AS A GOOGLE DOC -- just send me an email and I will send you the link.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: Note that this is a two-semester process. Students are invited but not required to enroll for both semesters. The Fall semester will be devoted to editorial acquisition, curation and high concept editing of both print and multimedia features; the Spring semester will focus on fine editing, design, production and distribution.

J298: Reporting on Public Health and Medicine

This course will provide a basic background for students interested in covering public health and medical issues. It will stress the importance of incorporating a broad social perspective in reporting on stories about health. The course will help students understand the challenges and complexities of the field and will provide tools for developing story ideas and wading through the massive amounts of information—and disinformation--out there. The class will examine key public health concepts and debates. We will also spend a lot of time discussing the role of the media in disseminating health information and examining coverage of major issues. Students will produce several health-related pieces in a variety of genres. Readings will include studies from medical and public health journals, critiques of how the media cover health issues, and newspaper and magazine articles on a variety of health topics.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J298: Online News Packages

This class teaches students how to develop interactive online news packages using best practices in design and web development. The course is technical in nature and will cover the following topics:

1) Best practices in developing interactive multimedia content online;
2) Design fundamentals and typography for online content;
3) HTML and CSS for designing and constructing web projects;
4) jQuery coding for adding interactivity to online content.

It is important to note that this class is NOT about building overall web sites, such as for an online publication, nor is it a venue to construct a personal portfolio web page. Instead this class is designed to give students the skills needed to construct online stories as multimedia packages. Some of the concepts in this class can be fairly esoteric and will require students to learn three programming/markup languages (HTML, CSS and JavaScript.) There will be quizzes and required memorization of some very technical concepts. Be prepared to absorb lots of new information and to dedicate a significant amount of outside class time to building projects for the class.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: Students who have Multimedia as their First Course Preference will be given priority for enrollment.

J298: Mobile Reporting-Cancelled

Don't be surprised if your next employer drops a smartphone in your lap and expects a digital reporting masterpiece. Fear not, this class is the answer to all your J-School woes! Or at least your mobile reporting worries.

Kidding aside, the dawn of the mobile era is here. This course will instruct students on new approaches to shooting, reporting and distributing mobile content. Participants will conduct real-world assignments using mobile devices, various apps and third-party accessories in order to gain the necessary field experience to become an informed and highly capable mobile journalist.

Students will also put together an interactive mobile app explaining the best practices gleaned from their own experiences using these devices. Our previous mobile app, http://mobilereportingguide.com/ is fast becoming an industry manual for mobile reporting in such organzations as CNN and Time Magazine.

In addition to the reporting project, the class will also include an abstract into how mobile devices are transforming the news industry. The class will look into ways journalists can produce content specifically for consumption on these devices. This may include interactive storytelling, citizen generated content, using SMS services for crowd-sourcing or any number of other techniques discovered over the semester.

The main outcome of the course is to get students to use mobile communication devices in the creation and distribution of news to an increasingly mobile audience and to document best practices for using smartphones to create high quality journalism.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J298: Video for the Web

In an age where being a journalist means storytelling across all media, the immediate and direct impact of video makes it an essential and powerful storytelling tool. Video for the Web is an intensive, hands-on class designed for students interested in getting advanced video training in the context of multimedia journalism. In this course, you will be challenged to think visually, and explore when, why, and how best to employ video storytelling. With a focus on refining both technical production skills (like camera, lighting, and location audio) and creative storytelling techniques, this class will teach you how to craft compelling video stories.

Using a combination of critiques, discussions, lectures, readings, and exercises, this workshop style class will guide and support students as they report, shoot, and edit video stories. In addition to producing one final video report, students will complete several practical assignments that will advance their thinking about visual storytelling as they prepare to move forward in their careers.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: This class will waitlist only. Priority enrollment will be given to students who put Multimedia as their first course preference, then to students who put Narrative Writing as their first course preference.

J298: Investigative Reporting Workshop

This seminar will give students the opportunity to pursue individual investigative stories in the public interest. It will be run as a series of practical workshops, delving into the gritty details of each student’s project. Led by two veteran investigative journalists, Matt Isaacs and Tim McGirk, from the Investigative Reporting Program, students will be taken through the crucial steps of investigative reporting, from finding a story, preferably within the region, to making the pitch to researching and organizing it into a compelling narrative worthy of publication in a prominent media outlet.

Learning Objectives: When students have completed this course, they will understand the makings of a good investigative story. They will know where to find the key building blocks, including human sources, property records, civil and criminal legal records, political documents, as well as the basics of computer-assisted reporting. Finally, they will know how to organize their research and shape it into a well-told investigative tale.

The ultimate goal for everyone in the class is to publish an investigative article or produce a piece for broadcast with a reputable news outlet. We will make every effort to help you realize this goal. Partnerships we have at our disposal include ProPublica, the Center for Investigative Reporting, NPR, PBS Frontline, the PBS NewsHour, as well as our own Investigative Reporting Program site.

Enrollment in in the class will give students first consideration for the Felt Scholarship for the 2013-2014 school year. Details for the Felt Scholarship will be announced to all students in late spring.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: Basic newswriting or the equivalent in professional experience is recommended.

J298: Catastrophe, Conflict, Scandal: Long Form and the Decoding of Reality

In this part seminar, we will turn our attention to the longer forms of storytelling, beginning with a thorough study of the best that has been achieved in that realm, with an eye toward getting at the possibilities of longer form reporting and writing. Our premise is, that with long form in particular, "you write with your ears." That is, what you read and hear in your head determines in large part what and how you come to write. We will be reading and studying articles, books and some films, many though not all concerning catastrophe, conflict and scandal: the fall of a dictator, the concealing of a massacre, the onset of a plague. We will delve into the shaping of narrative structure, the establishment of voice, the creation and uses of suspense. Those whose work we will study include Defoe, Pontecorvo, McPhee, Malcolm, LeBlanc, Trow, Orlean, and Orwell, among many others.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J298: Entrepreneurial Journalism

While disruptive changes in technology, consumer behavior and economics are challenging the media that traditionally supported journalism, the very same forces have created enormous opportunities to develop innovative new products, services and technologies to inform the public.

This class will help students refine and advance their own ideas for innovative journalistic and other information-delivery projects by acquainting them with the fundamentals of launching and managing a business. Projects may cover any or all media and may be envisioned as either for-profit or not-for-profit ventures.

It is essential that students enrolling in the class have at least one concrete idea for a project they want to pursue. The project selected by a student may be something on which she or he already has begun work. Students may pursue projects individually or in small teams.

The aim of the class is to develop a detailed business plan. The class will be conducted as a workshop similar to an advanced-reporting class, requiring substantial independent initiative and time from each student.

The final project produced by students at the end of the term will be a thorough, fact-filled narrative describing the idea of the project, its intended audience, how it will be introduced into the marketplace and a financial plan for sustaining the effort (even non-profits need to pay the bills!). In some cases, students may be able to advance as far as creating a mock-up or prototype of their intended projects.

If a student finds after thorough investigation that a proposed project would be unlikely to succeed, the final narrative will summarize the research and contain a discussion of the findings that led the author to abandon the project. This outcome is perfectly acceptable and students will be not penalized for not picking a “winner,” because the point of the class is to understand the process and discipline associated with developing a start-up venture.

Classes will be held once a week for two hours per class; however, students should plan to spend a considerable amount of time outside the class to properly complete their projects. Here is how the semester will break down:

• The first sessions of the class will acquaint students with the fundamental elements that must be considered in organizing a business.

• The next sessions will be seminars where students describe their projects and help each other think through the issues associated with their respective projects. (Because confidentiality cannot be assured, students pursuing an idea they do not want to publicly disclose should not enroll in this class.)

• The next phase of the class will involve researching the market for the proposed project, developing a business model, planning a go-to-market strategy and, time permitting, the development of prototypes. As necessary, these sessions will be held as group seminars or broken into a series of counseling sessions for individual projects.

• The closing session(s) will be devoted to final presentations of each project to the full class and potentially to other interested members of the School community.

Students are welcomed from all disciplines. Participation is encouraged from students in the schools of business, computer science and information.

The instructor is Alan Mutter, a former newspaper editor who transitioned into a business career that eventually landed him in Silicon Valley, where he was the CEO of several companies and was an independent investor in others.

Restrictions and Prerequisites:
None

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J298: Reporting and Editing for the San Quentin News

Enrollment for this class will be by application. See below for details. Applications are due on November 20 at Noon.

The class will meet as a group once every two weeks. But each student would put in two hours per week at a minimum as fieldwork at San Quentin Prison in Marin County.

You don't have to be a felon to write for the San Quentin News. But it helps. Otherwise, the San Quentin News wants a few good men and women to work as adjunct reporters and editors of the monthly newspaper.

If you want to be a part of this unique partnership, please let me know. You don’t get money, just J School units and a possible professional project, and the rewards are huge and life-long.

Here are the details.

The San Quentin News is an award-winning, inmate-produced publication created by the legendary warden, Clinton Truman Duffy, in the 1940s. It has a core staff of about 10 inmates and four civilian advisors. Arnulfo Garcia, the editor, wants to expand the paper from its present 12 pages to 16 and to improve the quality of the stories. (You may access recent past issues of the paper at sanquentinnews.com).

To this end, I proposed to the San Quentin editorial staff an arrangement by which a small number of qualified UC Berkeley students would enroll in a special course. The students would have to commit to visiting the prison at least two hours per week at a time to be arranged individually. The students would work cooperatively with San Quentin inmate writers in developing stories, reporting and editing copy. The students would sit side by side with convicts and edit their copy. The students would also do reporting outside the prison and writes stories jointly with convicts.

Editor Garcia specifically is interested in developing long-form, investigative pieces. Inmates are unable to do such stories now, because Internet is not allowed inside San Quentin. In fact, all mobile phones, iPads, cameras, recording devices, etc., are forbidden inside.

The model proposed to the SQ News staff would have inmates doing the reporting from the tiers and the prison yard, while the UC student would do interviews and research in the free world. Presently news media are highly restricted in their access to the 33 state prisons in California. Participation in the course might provide the raw material for a valuable dissertation or professional project to be published outside of the SQ News project.

Students would be selected after an application process. Participation would be contingent upon approval by the SQ News editor. It would also depend on the applicant being approved for entry into the prison by the Warden of San Quentin. (State guidelines forbid entry to anyone with a DUI conviction or a felony conviction). Applicants will be selected according to relevant experience, maturity and professionalism. They would also have to agree to abide by a written code of behavior, including a dress code.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bw1USe2VbL7QOFgxX1NPQkVzTzg/edit

The San Quentin project would build upon the J School’s commitment to hyper-local coverage of voiceless communities. The difference is that the output would be published only in a newsprint publication, produced on a web press in San Rafael. The role of the students would be reporting, writing and editing in partnership with inmates. The newspaper circulates among the 5,000 SQ inmates (including 750 on death row) and is mailed out to an audience in the free world, consisting of state officials, academics and other interested parties.

The project would build upon the experience and credibility the J School achieved in the 2010 News21 project http://berkeley.news21.com/behindbars/

If you have what it takes, please email me two items:
1. A resume
2. A statement not to exceed 300 words describing why you want to participate and the skills you would bring to the table.

Students who enrolled in the course in the previous semester (Fall 2012) and successfully completed may repeat and would be given priority in admission.

##

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J298: Telling Stories on Air: A Workshop (8 weeks)

This is an 8 week workshop. The first class will be THURSDAY FEBRUARY 7, from 6-7:30pm.

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN THE DATE OF THE FIRST CLASS... AFTER THIS FIRST WEEK WE WILL MEET ON TUESDAYS FOR CLASS, BUT BECAUSE OF A SCHEDULING CONFLICT, FOR OUR FIRST CLASS WE'LL MEET ON THE DAY/TIME NORMALLY DESIGNATED FOR THE LISTENING GROUP/OFFICE HOURS, WHICH IS THURSDAY (6-7:30pm).

*Be sure to check out our class Tumblr at storiesonair.tumblr.com, where we'll post weekly listening and reading assignments, as well as whatever other gleanings we turn up. Right now, all the assignments for the first class are there, and we'll be updating it frequently.*

Ever had a “driveway moment”, when you stayed in the car after getting somewhere, just to listen to a radio piece? Caught yourself laughing, or maybe sniffling, during an episode of This American Life? Grimaced listening to a dispatch from a foreign conflict? The human voice is the soundtrack of the human scale, and it makes radio an amazingly intimate medium, capable of eliciting a whole range of reactions like these. But some pieces linger with us longer than others. Why is that? And how can we—as radio producers, and as storytellers at large—grasp and harness the power of sound and narrative?

This workshop explores those questions. From interview techniques, to ambiance, to structure, to voicing—and with a focus on integrating it all into great scripts—we’ll highlight and refine the elements and skills that make radio stories pop. The workshop is appropriate for anyone interested in radio, from complete beginners to experienced producers. It’s also appropriate for students focusing on other areas, such as film or print, who are interested in writing scripts, or simply want to become more agile storytellers.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: This workshop supports and builds on the reporting and writing you do in other classes, so most of the work will take place in the classroom. In addition to class time, there will be a brief, 10-20 minute listening assignment each week. Those pieces range from work by masters, to the new generation of radio producers; all will be examples of how we can creatively use sound to tell killer stories. Several producers will visit the workshop. *In addition to the class itself, there will be optional “office hours” each week for workshopping radio scripts and story ideas, and a bi-weekly listening group where we’ll gather to hear a selection of radio pieces, followed by a brief, informal discussion. Office hours and listening group are not required: they’re simply extra opportunities to expand and polish your scripts and stories, and to be part of a community that loves sound and narrative storytelling.*

J298: Reporting on MYANMAR

Burmese journalists will lead a class to learn about trends, tensions and social values in Myanmar (also known as Burma). The class will look at the country’s history, the legacy of British rule and independence, followed by decades of tight military control and now tentative reforms.

To hear the generals tell it, Myanmar is in the midst of a transition to more openness and opportunity. Others say the nation is headed toward ethnic strife, then political contention with the approach of the presidential election slated for 2015. Seasoned journalists, waiting for an end to a culture of thought control and censorship, muse about years in and out of prison. Aung San Suu Kyi, icon of resistance and dignity known as “The Lady,” moves toward public compromise and happy endings. Exiles recalibrate their lives as some begin to return. George Orwell, who had family ties to British-run Burma and was a police officer there in the 1920s, later wrote the novels “Animal Farm” and “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Today’s citizens joke how his writings eerily predicted their fears and the mentality of the military leaders who’ve ruled their country until now.

The class will look at media, propaganda and internet policing. We’ll learn about social stratification, dislocation, poverty, and health issues. We’ll hear about struggles triggered by land confiscations. We’ll hear about the educational system and internal tensions between ethnic groups in different regions. We’ll look at farmers and traders and civil servants. We’ll look at business trends and economic develop and the actions of tycoons and foreign powers. We’ll examine how the Chinese and the Americans vie for influence, and how some citizens are resisting pressures from outside developers.

We will invite experts, journalists and guest lecturers to give the class a broader sense of how some Burmese view themselves and the world.
Students will read books, monitor newspapers Web sites that focus on Myanmar, and present one report to the class, and one paper.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: Graduate students only and is by instructor consent.

J298: Advanced Opinion Writing Workshop

Every Other Tuesday beginning January 22. 5:30-8:30 pm - This is a continuation of the Fall 2012 Reported Column Course. It is designed to focus on short-form, analytical writing (columns, radio commentaries and graphics) about politics and policy for students with graduate or professional level background and ongoing research in these areas. Some of our workshops will include guest experts from other campus departments - e.g. economics, law, demography and political science and where appropriate, political practitioners. If you did not take the Fall course, please consult the instructor before enrolling.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J298: This Bay Area Life: Public Affairs Radio

Get involved in the community. Strengthen your interviewing skills. Develop an on-air persona (or not.) Follow up on your J-200 stories.

Get real-life, professional, broadcasting experience!

In Spring, a new, weekly, half-hour Public Affairs program produced at the J-School will begin on Cumulus radio stations in the Bay Area. Be part of the creation of a new tradition and add four commercial radio stations to your resume: KFOG, KSAN, KNBR 680 and 1050.

Each week, a team of J-students will produce a 30-minute program designed to inform local residents about important work being done in the community. Students have the opportunity to research topics of interest, find local spokespeople, interview interesting guests, and contribute to this on-going series.

Students who desire to be on-air will have the opportunity to find their own voice.
Some students will act as interviewers; others as researchers, directors and producers. Work where you are most comfortable.

The programs can be as complex as RADIOLAB or as sparse as FRESH AIR. It's up to you.

No audio experience is needed - just the desire to get interview subjects to tell their stories and to contribute to the well-being of the Bay Area.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: None

J601: Master's Study

Individual preparation or study, in consultation with a faculty advisor. Study ultimately leads to the completion of the Master's Project. Units many not be used to meet either unit or residence requirements for the master's degree.

Restrictions and Prerequisites: Restricted to Journalism Students.