Welcome to Newswriting and Reporting, MFJS 2140, Spring 2012. You're here to explore the topsy-turvy landscape and practice of contemporary nonfiction publishing. What were you thinking? Maybe you were thinking that there's no better time to dive into a river than when it's roiling in the middle of a blazing midsummer storm. Exciting! Adventure! Anything can happen! That's great. That's how I think about it. It helps when the waves begin running around rocks everywhere and everyone starts screaming that you're doing something terribly wrong.
Some starting tips: (1) Get to the bottom of the thing and get to the point when you're writing about it. (2) Practice writing exactly what you want to say. Use only the words that work to do exactly that. Write them. Read them. Then do it again, better. And then one more time. (3) Be fair to all parties. (4) Be ready to back up or otherwise defend everything you write. (5) Help your classmates do it better.
First topic of discussion: What do I mean by "Muckrakers. Explainers. Amateurs. Citizens." and who is that early-20th-century woman staring at you from the top of the post?
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