Welcome to HNC

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Dear NewsHounds:

Welcome to the, er, “Spring” semester (c’mon, it’s minus-3 outside!). Hope you all had a great and restful break and return to the deep freeze rarin’ to go.

The special topics class you’ve registered for this semester is an advanced reporting and photo class designed to feed the Hard News Café with both text and photos, and to give you all a vehicle for expanding your professional portfolios with more in-depth and sophisticated stories and other clips.

The class will be co-taught by Patrick Oden, editor of The Statesman, and me. Patrick will focus (haha) on the photo side for those of you interested primarily in shooting (photographers must have their own digital cameras). I will serve as managing editor of the Hard News Café, and will work with the writers primarily. Both writers and shooters will work together to produce packages that include both text and art.

You will serve collectively as the staff of the Hard News Café. Our goal is to make HNC an even more excellent vehicle for breaking news and in-depth features and investigations. To make this happen, we will meet as a group once weekly—Wednesdays, 4-7 p.m., in the JCOM computer lab (AnSci 302).

• 4-5 p.m.: The entire staff meets to discuss upcoming stories and to critique what we did last week. Staffers are expected to bring story ideas to each session, and we will update an assignment board at each Wednesday meeting, as well as through the week.

• 5-6 p.m.: Patrick will hold formal sessions for the photo staff; Pease will meet as needed individually with the writing staff.

• 6-7 p.m.: Photo staff can work independently on PhotoShop and other stuff in the lab, and Patrick will be available for one-on-one and specialized work.

Staffers will be in close contact with their editors on their ongoing assignments through the week, both for coverage advice and to hand in assignments when they are finished. Deadlines for assignments will vary depending on the story and the news.

Make sense so far? See the syllabi (one for everyone and one for photographers).

The HNC Staff Blog: Please accept the invitation to become part of this blog so that you can file your own posts.

Story Ideas: Please come to each class with story ideas so HNC can get its coverage started promptly. File story ideas on this blog under The Tickle File by date, with as much essential info as you can. The editors also will come to Wednesday sessions with story ideas, looking for staffers to cover them, and we will email the entire staff regularly as stories come up.

All Together Now! If you have stories you’re working on and need angle/sources/ideas, post your story on the blog and ask the other staffers for their feedback. For example, if you’re doing a profile on a professor, if you need a source who has been in a bad accident, if you want ideas for how to approach a story about milking cows.... (etc.) post your query on the HNC blog. And check the blog regularly to respond to your co-workers’ cries for help.

This is a team effort, not a top-down class. So we hope that everyone views participation in the Hard News Café class this semester as a personal and professional commitment. Our goal is to do the best journalism in the Valley.

Questions? Email either ted.pease@usu.edu or patrick.oden@aggiemail.usu.edu.

More to come,
Oden&Pease, Newsmeisters Extraordinaire
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