English for Journalism, A course from Coursera.com

HISTORY PRE-1960

The first time that people received the news was back during the times of the Roman Empire in around 130 BCE, before the year 0. The daily events, called acta diurna in Latin, were carved into stone and put up in public places, such as a market square, so that people could read them. People could read about births and deaths, marriages, and the results of legal trials.

Around the same time in China, a similar thing was happening. The Chinese government sent out messages called dibao, meaning government report, to local governors, people who were in charge of an area.

On 1454, A German man called Johannes Guttenberg found a printing machine that can created many pages very qickly, it’s called The Printing Press.

In Europe in the 1620, people write a single-page newsletter called Corantos. People were writing about war and other interesting news but the government cencored them, because they only want them to write corantos about the information that can help the government.

In the 1644 in England, A famous poet named John Milton published Areopagitica: A speech for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing. This speech called for the freedom of the press, meaning that people should be able to report the news without government trying to stop them.

The summary is in this pre-1960 of  the early history of journalism is that the governments wanted to control the information that people received.

HISTORY 1960 UNTIL NOW

For most of the 18^th century, the government still controlling the publishing of newspaper. For example, in the USA in 1722, Benjamin Franklin took over as editor of a newspaper called The New England Courant, because his older brother was in jail. The government accused him of writing things that were not true.

Then in 1791, ten amendements to the US constitution called the Bill of Rights became a law. The first amendement talked about freedom of religion, freedom of speech and also freedom of the press. This amendment protects journalists rights by making sure the government cannot control the information or opinions that journalists publish.

In the early 19^th century, most of the newspapers were biased. (Told the one side of the story  or one POV)

In 1850 newspaper enlarge the publications not only national but international, supported by the improved of the technology. And it continuous to popular throughout the 20^th century.

In 1920, news were announce through radio. And in 1950, as the television more popular, people now could see pictures as well as hear about the news. In 1990 internet become popular so online newspaper began to publish their news by online. One example is Britain's Weekend City Press Review.

PRINCIPLES OF JOURNALISM(1): GATHERING SOURCES

There are ten principles of journalism:

1.        Verification
2.         Objectivity
3.          Originality
4.         Completeness
5.         Transparency
6.          Fairness
7.          Restraint
8.          Humanity
9.           Accountability
10. .        Empowerment

The first two principles are verification and objectivity. Verification means when the journalist gathering sources, they have to verify the information that they get.

 To make it sure, the journalist must write it down or record the statement that given by eyewitness. The second principles is objectivity. This means that the journalist must gather the information out of from the eyewitness, it can be from internet or the past news that have a connection with the new one.

The second four principles are originality, completeness, transparency and fairness. Originality is when a journalist wants to make a new news, it must creating something new, must not borrow the words from others. If the journalist copied a story from others, it’s called plagiarism. Completeness, this means that journalists need to tell the whole story not just a part of it. Transparency means that the people have the opportunity to look at the process that the journalist goes through when they write their article. For example, the journalist makes it clear who they spoke to. Fairness, means that a journalist must think about the language they use in their article to make sure they accurately tell the facts without bias favoring one side or another.

The last four principles are restraint, humanity, accountability and empowerment. Restraint, The journalist when stop themselves from writing things that could be bad for people.Journalists also show restraint when they allow their sources to be anonymous.This means that nobody knows their name. Journalists need to do this because sometimes bad things could happen to the person if their name was known. They might lose their job or possibly even get hurt. Humanity, means that the journalist must treat the eyewitness, victim or other person that have a connection to treat them as a human, not just a part of the story. Accountability, means that the journalist takes responsibility for their actions. There are two accountability, The first is personal. A journalist must be responsible for the story that they write, balancing what the public needs to know, and the rights of the people involved. Also, if there are mistakes in the story, a journalist must admit and correct them. The second type of accountability involves making the people in power responsible for their actions. Empowerment, which means giving power to people who do not have it. A journalist's job is to speak for the people who don't have the power to speak.

WEEK 2

Chapter 1: Choosing A Topic

There are three type to narrow a down a topic: type, place, and time.

Example:

Type – technology

Place – world become country, city

Time – most recent use instead of the history of cellphone

Chapter 2: Researching an Idea

Before thinking about idea, first we must now what kinds of articles:

-          News story: the time it appeard, places hit it, the damage it caused & the people it affected.

-          Investigative journalism: it took a months/ years for extra research.

-          Interest journalism: it focused on a person as way as of talking about the current event.

Then after knowing the kinds of articles, we can gather the sources by:

-          People/ eyewitness

-          Information

Chapter 3: Pitching a Story

The process of newspapers and magazines go through when picking what stories to be printed

a.       Newspaper

A newspaper should have mass appeal meaning, citizens of all ages, backgrounds, levels of education should be interested in at least some of the articles published in a newspaper. 

b.      Magazine

Should have much specific traits. Example: the target is a woman who lives in the city and have a professional jobs.

            The source must be accurately, completely, and truthfully.

c.       Radio

In radio script, there are two things that we must to pay attention for:

-          The structure

1.       a summary of the story or a question to be answered.

2.       the names of people who are going to be interviewed and what they are likely to say.

3.       any link to current events. 

4.       an explanation as to why the story is important.

-          The approach

Means the way that you do something. There are two ways to make the approach more interesting: one, summarizing the story in the first sentence and two, establishing your connection to the story.

WEEK 3

A structure of a news story:

1.    Headline

Is a title/main idea of the article, it also have to get the readers attention.

2.    Byline

Identify the author and author’s job. Sometimes included date and place the event described in the article.

3.    Lead

Lead is the first paragraph of the article. It gives the most important information by what, why, who, when, where and how.

4.    Conclusion

Conclusion can be found in the end od the article. It summarize the article.

5.    Images, graph or maps (caption below the image)

The author sometimes add some images to get the readers attention. And below of the tittle there is a caption to explain a sentence of the image.

Types of Lead

There are three types of lead:

1.    Summary lead

In this type of lead the event explained clearly. When it happened, who is involved, what time and where it happened.

2.    Anecdotal lead

This type of lead that started with a personal story of the eyewitness and attract the reader to read the whole article.

3.    Contrast lead

In this type of lead, the author use the opposite facts or ideas to start the article.

How to make a Lead

            Summary lead is the most common used lead in news stories. Here are the Do’s & Don’ts:

            DO’S:

1.      Give the WH questions

2.      Being spesifics

3.      Being brief, use short and only few words

DON’TS:

1.      Don’t put too much extra information that not nesecarry

2.      Don’t repeat the information that already given

Associated Press Style

            There are three parts of Associated Press Style:

1.      Capitalization

We use the capitalization on the first word of the sentence, names of people, countries, cities, name of a books or movies, we use quotation not italic.

2.      Numbers

The small number from one to nine should be spelled out. For example seven pillars not 7 pillars. Then from ten to above we should use numeral. So, we write there are 45 countries not there are fourty-five countries. And for a very large number, we always spell the millions or billions, for example we write there are 250 millions people not there are 250,000,000 million people. Last for the percentage we should write the percent, not the symbol. So, we write there are 50 percent of.. not there are 50% of….

3.      Dates

For writing the months, from August to February we can abbreviated it. For example January become Jan. Then from March to July, it should not be abbreviated, because it’s already short so we have to write the whole words. Then if we want to write the dates, we just write the number like, 1 Dec, 2019.

Reporting Accuarry

In this part, a journalis must report a news accurately and complete. Not only from one eyewitness, but also from others that have a connection with the accident or an event. The journalist must get the news from different prespective. The journalist also have to find the truth about the news that he/she will report.

Proofreading an Article

Proofreading means that the author must read the finished article to check for the errors. This is a very important step before we publish our article. On this step, we must focus on  Punctuation, Capitalization, and Spelling.

WEEK 4

The Language Broadcast Journalism

Nowadays, we don’t  only read a news from a newspaper, we also can listen to the radio and watch news broadcast on television. The program on the television has a definite schedule, for example on channel A, they have a scheduled a headline news three times a day. At 10 a.m, 3 p.m, and 9 p.m.

On the studio, the journalist that report the news must be a professional journalist and have a lot of experiences about journalism. They trying to not make a mistake while “on air”. The journalist that reporting a news actually reading the script from the “Teleprompter”. It’s a machine that will show the script that will be red by the journalist.

The People of Broadcast Journalism

In this section, we will focus on: anchors, correspondents, producers, and control room operators.

1.      Anchors

Anchor is the lead of journalist. The journalist that read the news in the news program shows called The News Anchors. They responsible for the program they hosting. Sometimes, the name of the anchor is the show.

2.      Correspondents

Correspondents are the other journalist from a different places and appear on the program. Correspondent is the regular journalist, or they can be someone that have a specialities like they may have a special knowledge about one topic. It's common for a correspondent to travel to where the news is happening and report from there. That's called being on location.