31 Aug Final paper
Breaking News: Special Report
This assignment requires you to write about a significant topic and its impact on your local community, city, town, or state for a local or state print newspaper and digital publication. The topic should be able to be connected to a larger issue that is statewide, regional, or national. You must interview at least two local individuals about the topic that you choose to write about, gather first-hand information in accordance with records and meetings laws, and create two news stories tailored to the audience of the chosen publications. You must interview those who can lend expert knowledge or opinions relevant to the story. The interviews must be conducted in person, by phone, or by video conference. Documents obtained for the news stories must be from credible entities.
For the story, you must:
- Adhere to the Newspaper download and Digital Publication download templates and Associated Press (AP) Style.
- Examine a topic that is current, controversial, and of human interest.
- Develop the story for a real-world print publication, tailored to a specific audience and for a real-world digital publication tailored to a specific audience
- Incorporate facts, visual elements, interactive elements and pull-quotes to enhance each story.
- Differentiate between various facts and opinions on the topic.
- Provide proper attribution for all sources of information included in the story (facts, statistics, images/video, and opinions).
Each story:
- Must be at least 500 words but no more than 550 words.
- Must use at least five sources of information. Among the sources chosen, the following are required:
- At least one verbal interview (in-person, by phone, or by video conference) with a specific, expert opinion on the topic
- At least one varying opinion on the topic in the form of an additional interview conducted by the student or from a credible source where another person was interviewed with an opposing opinion
- At least two statistical and/or factual pieces of information about the topic from a credible source
- At least one piece of information obtained or pending by utilizing a FOIA request
- Must include at least two visual elements (chart, diagram, photograph, etc.) for the written story and utilize a pull quote in the layout.
- Must include at least two visual elements for the digital story and one interactive element for the digital publication
Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignmen
