Journalism for All

Dave Winer has been writing recently about the topic of teaching journalism to many people:

• Working together, in 2019 – “…Most important we have to stop thinking of journalism as a way for a small number of people to earn a living and do a lousy job of serving the people’s interest, and more of a civic calling, a way for all of us to add meaning to each others’ lives. Until we get there, we’ll keep electing losers like Trump and getting no further in solving the climate and social crises. (1/4/2019)
• Wondering About Journalists – “I wonder if any journalists out there agree it’s worth a shot to train a million people in basic journalism…” (12/14/2019).

As well as in the past:

• Idea: An Indivisible Guide for Journalism – “…Like the Indivisible howto, but for journalism. Teach everyday people the basics of reporting. It would be incredible for our self-government if we had millions of people who knew how to report based on actual facts….” (2/13/2017).
• Journalism Is Easy To Define – “… I get an idea for a story or someone gives me one. Do a little searching on the web, call a few people. Take notes on what I hear. Call some other people or send them emails. Write up the notes on my computer. Organize them into a sequence. Then, I optionally offer it for review to other people to get their opinions and they possibly rewrite it, or I incorporate their feedback and make changes. This is called editing. This process iterates a few times. Then the story is published, usually on a website, and possibly at some later time on paper. If you do this then you’re doing journalism. If you do something else, it’s something else. It’s not good or bad. But this is what we call journalism. ” (9/3/2011)

I have read these thoughts from Dave Winer in the past, and generally agreed with them (it would be good for people to have some experience in journalistic writing), but did not do anything about it. Well, a few days ago, I read this from Ron Chester:

After all, we now have the advantage that, more than ever before, men & women of all kinds of backgrounds, races, cultures, religions and more have a real opportunity to contribute to our path forward. Surely this will lead to good things. That’s how I see it anyway. (from One Person Can Change A Lot (12/25/2018))

So, following Ron’s advice, and in the spirit of Derek Sivers’ article First Follower: Leadership Lessons from a Dancing Guy (where the first follower shows other people how to follow), I am going to try to be the first follower. Since my training is in aerospace engineering/software development, I felt the need to find a few resources to start teaching myself about the practice of journalism. I decided to focus on three resources: The New York Times, the BBC, and the Knight Center for Journalism at the University of Texas. Here are the starter resources I am going to review for my first news story:

New York Times:

• The Promise of Online Journalism – A series published by the New York Times in 2001 (I actually remember this when it came out!) working with Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Contains 8 chapters plus resource links at the end, Chapter 4 covers the nuts and bolts about reporting.
• Teaching and Learning about Journalism – A post from November 2009 on the Learning Network blog, this post provides a great list of resources for New York Times and other resources for student journalists and their teachers and advisers.

BBC:

• BBC Young Reporter – Articles and resources for student reporters. The Lesson Plans section leads students step by step from getting story ideas to producing the news.
• BBC Editorial Guidelines – How the BBC shapes its news stories

Knight Center/University of Texas

• Journalism 2.0 – Free PDF copy of this book from 2007, covers the full range of digital technologies for new reporting (although somewhat dated), still a good read, I thought it made the case for anyone being able to create and publish news stories with the technology we have. (Direct link to English PDF copy, the link on the page is broken)
• Course Catalog – Many of the courses taught by the Knight Center are still available online

I am committing to creating a news story by January 13th – there, I put that out there! Anyone with me? Let’s hear from you!