News Sense: The Building Blocks of News
Course Overview
- Title:
- News Sense: The Building Blocks of News
- Type:
- Self-Directed Course
- Cost:
- This $29.95 course is free thanks to the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
- Time Estimate:
- News Sense takes about an hour to complete.
About Self-Directed Courses
In a self-directed course, you can start and stop whenever you like, progressing entirely at your own pace and going back as many times as you want to review the material.
News Sense explores the basic building blocks of news stories. You’ll examine the who, what, when, where, why and how of events and see how the answers to those questions shape news coverage.
We'll give you readings, examples, games and exercises to help you develop the mindset to begin reporting and writing the news. We hope this course sparks your interest in learning more about the craft of newswriting and the world of journalism past, present and future.
What Will I Learn:
Upon completing this course, you will be able to:
- Judge the newsworthiness of stories
- Verify facts using multiple sources
- Clarify information for yourself, readers and viewers
- Build a strong foundation for any news story
Who should take this course:
Anyone who wants to understand the building blocks of the news and how journalists use these building blocks.
Course Instructor:
Mary Ann Hogan
Mary Ann Hogan is a former writing coach who now teaches rhetoric and critical thinking at Florida Atlantic University.
Technical Requirements:
For this course you will need to have at least version 7.0 of the Flash plugin installed. For the best experience, we suggest that:
- PC users use Internet Explorer or Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox
- Mac users use Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox or Safari
- you set your monitor resolution to 1024 x 768 or higher
- you use a high speed connection