Public Affairs ReportingJournalism 135Course
Description | Grading | Texts
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Course Description This is a course on public affairs reporting. It is designed to acquaint you with the processes of city, county and state government from a news reporter's perspective. The texts are primarily resource books to help guide you in your search for information on public issues covering the vast array of public agencies and issues. You will learn how government organizations function, how to access documents and sources, and how to decipher the sometimes complex machinery that make up America's bureaucracy. The focus of attention will be Sacramento (city, county, school district and law enforcement) and California (executive, legislative and judicial systems). Although this is structured with local flavor, the lessons learned with be applicable if you end up in Utah or New York or South Dakota. I will guide through the early part of the course, but you will make significant oral and written contributions toward the end.
Good reporting requires patience. It requires attendance at long, often boring public meetings and court hearings. It requires poring over lengthy, often confusing public documents. It requires the careful development of sources –– both human and documentary –– and more than anything else, it requires careful research, the ability to ask good questions based on that research, and of course, the ability to organize and compile information and to write precisely and accurately.
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