J201 Community Sites

J201 is a reporting, storytelling and practical skills-based production course that takes the basics of J200 and builds on them, focusing on more advanced reporting techniques. Students from any year and any media track are welcome! This class isn’t tied to any particular medium or technology — just to coverage of Richmond and Oakland. We’ll use the hyperlocal websites as a vehicle to explore community-based storytelling while tackling more complex reporting and story concepts. We’ll work on advanced writing concepts like voice, language and personal style, as well as some of the trickier nuts and bolts of narrative reporting. We’ll tackle how to report using very specific kinds of information, like assembling a story based entirely on documents, or basing a story on a first-person experience. We’ll tackle some gnarly fundamentals, like how to write the perfect kicker or how to deal with uncooperative sources. We’ll keep running the “Tales of Two Cities” podcast (invented by a previous J201 class) … and we’ll try your new ideas for how we can cover our communities. What do YOU want to build?! (PS: You are highly encouraged to “double dip” your J201 assignments for other production classes — such as TV, radio, narrative or multimedia classes — as long as you keep the story’s focus on Oakland and/or Richmond and work with KP as one of your editors.)