J298 Profiling the Red States

J298 Profiling the Red StatesThe Cuba class has been cancelled and instead, the travel class I will teach this spring will be focused on profiling the red states, getting to know a region that press clearly fails to understand well.Koci will create a website for the class and we hope this will become a multi-year project in which the J-​S​chool and its students accomplish a critical mass of reporting.The initial class this Spring will identify five to six places where students will travel to in pairs.In the class, you will learn how to prepare for a travel reporting trip as any journalist prepares. Although we have a longer lead time, we also have more to learn.The first part of the class will be a combination of two elements: 1. Backgrounders on the political and social history of the red states. 2. An in-depth look at how a journalist produces profiles – of a person, of a community and of a place. We will look at both classic pieces and those pieces focused on the region we will cover.Four weeks into the class we will mete out the places we want to focus on and students will begin preparing reporting memos. The trip will take place over spring break, but a lot of advance reporting can be done beforehand.The application to the class requires only the name of your J-200 professor and the media you will work in. I will take a mix of print and video reporters.​ ​