ATS2310 - Newsroom practice - 2019

6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Undergraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Faculty

Arts

Organisational Unit

Journalism

Chief examiner(s)

Ms Corinna Hente

Coordinator(s)

Ms Corinna Hente

Not offered in 2019

Prerequisites

ATS1089 and ATS1090

Synopsis

This unit provides a comprehensive introduction to current newsroom practice. Students will bring basic skills learned in other practical journalism subjects and develop a more sophisticated understanding of the role of a working journalist. The unit will prepare students to pitch stories, to work with editors, to produce material to deadline and to work across a variety of platforms in the process of producing stories and story packages for publication. Students will be expected to produce multi-media packages across a mix of text, image, video and audio, with some collaboration required. The aim is to build skills that are essential in a modern commercial newsroom and that are expected of young reporters. Journalists are expected to be able to come up with ideas of their own, expressed as a developed idea with an angle and a clear course of implementation. They should also be able to pick up an editor's idea and follow it through to completion - making sure the finished work has images and other supportive material to make it publishable. They should be able to work with a more experienced editor to turn their story into something publishable, if necessary.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the unit, students will be able to:

  1. recognise how a modern newsroom works;
  2. pitch a coherent story idea to an editor;
  3. design and construct a multi-media story package based on an assigned story idea;
  4. work collaboratively to produce a multi-media story package;
  5. recognise how to work with an editor to improve work and make it publishable;
  6. present a portfolio containing a number of solid, professional story packages.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

See also Unit timetable information

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study