Some reading for Wednesday

We are going to be discussing feature leads for Wednesday and so I wanted to give you a couple of long features to read. These are phenomenal stories and we will discuss what about their structure and writing makes them so great.

Letters from an Arsonist

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man

Equipment Checkout Rules and Hours

Third Floor Equipment Checkout Room Policies

Spring semester 2011

Revised Jan 23, 2011

·      All equipment except video equipment is on a two-day check out. Video gear is on a one-day checkout only. You cannot renew equipment.

·      All equipment checked out for the weekend must be returned Monday between10:30 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. This time is reserved for check in only. Noon-1 p.m. on Mondays is reserved for checking out gear.

·      Tuesday through Friday you may check out or return equipment between 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

·      No one can check out or return equipment for you.

·      Video equipment is only available to Native News, Online News, Multimedia, Freelance Photography and Graduate students.

·      J227 Camera kits are for J227 students only.

·      J227 and J270 classes have priority on all Olympus audio recorder kits. Online News and Community News Service may need to check out Marantz kits.

·      Students may check out the same piece of equipment for a maximum of two consecutive weekends. However, at the end of checkout hours (just before 2 p.m.) on Friday, they may check out a third time if the equipment is available.

·      Equipment is not available for Kaimin staff.

·      NO EXCEPTIONS: so don’t ask.

It is crucial that you plan ahead and reserve your equipment. Do not wait until the last minute. Failure to return equipment on time, or failure to pick up reserved gear, or failure to return every item you checkout on time will result in a strike.

You have the option to reserve equipment.

Procedure: You must reserve equipment in the checkout room by 1 p.m. Friday of the week before you need the equipment.

Holiday Checkout

Presidents’ Day: Check out Thursday or Friday and return Tuesday by noon.

Spring Break: Check out Thursday or Friday and return on Monday by noon.

News Editor Assignments

I wanted to reiterate the news editor assignment and send you the schedule for the coming semester.

Remember each Thursday by 6:00 p.m. You need to post your top local, national and international story in the comments area to a post I will put up there. Each story needs to be accompanied by a headline you write for your weekly newspaper from Missoula.

Additionally, you need to propose a sidebar or localization feature about one of your top stories. This is a hypothetical story you would look to do to go with your other stories. Don’t just make it up, but you can propose to look for a certain type of person without actually having to do all of the leg work.

First stories are due next Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011. Each week the news editors need to discuss before class on Friday what the class proposed and what you would select as the best headlines and stories as well as the top sidebar feature.

SCHEDULE:
Week 1: Michelle and Alan
Week 2: Amy and Ashley
Week 3: John and Alexa
Week 4: Kendra and Kyle
Week 5: Michael and Mariah
Week 6: Brooks and Taylor
Week 7: Patrick and Alyssa
Week 8: Amanda and Austin
Week 9: Lilian and Carli
Week 10: Meghan and Abby

My first story is due when?@#!?

Funny you should ask... Your first story is due Wednesday, January 26, 2011 by 5:00 p.m.

Stories should be emailed to me at lee.banville @ umontana.edu by the deadline. They should be written in Microsoft Word or another compatible word processing program.

Stories should be true. You should have reported this piece and found at least two sources to talk to about your story. These two people CANNOT be your  friends.

The story cannot be an opinion piece about what you think about Inception or Wilco. It needs to be a factual, reported piece. (For example, don't report about Hillary Clinton adopting an adorable baby alien.)

The story cannot be about you -- unless you have adopted an adorable baby alien.

Length should be no more than 2 pages, double-spaced (about 500 words), but can be shorter.

The Paperwork Post

As we start our Journalism 270 adventures, I need to have you fill out a couple of paperwork things:

First, if this is your first class in Don Anderson Hall, we need to create your space on the journalism school servers. Once you set this up, your desktop will show up on any computer you log in to. That said, you should always save a second version of your work on a thumb drive or somewhere on the web. To get your account provisioned, click here.

The other thing we need to do is get you after-hours access to this building. The way to do that is to go here and fill out the form. In a few days you will be able to use your Griz Card to get into the front door of the building and will be provided a code to get into the computer labs so you can work whenever you like.

Finally, you can print things off at out printers, but to do so you need to purchase print credits. See Emily or Kathleen in DAH 201 to buy them. I think they are usually sold in $5 increments.

Spring 2011 Syllabus

Here is the rough outline of what we are going to tackle this semester. I want to clearly tell you this may change as the semester wears on, but here is what we plan on doing.

Spring 2011 Syllabus

You should assume any assignment listed on here is due at the time listed unless I specifically tell you it is not.