MAC189 Week 12

1. MAC189 Week 12 Guide to critical evaluations

2. Today’s lecture • Guidelines for your critical evaluation • What happens next in MAC189 • Module feedback form

3. What is a critical evaluation? • 1,000 word essay or report .. • .. where you assess how you put together your individual story and your live news package .. • .. judging how well you performed, and the success or otherwise of your final stories .. • .. to be submitted to Assignment Services on January 18

4. Why? • To apply theory to your own journalism practice • So you can not only “do” journalism, but think about why you did it like that • To assess your journalism on two levels: • Professional: how you handled the task of reporting • Academic: how did you represent the story, what news values did you use, any ethical problems, what language did you use . .

5. How to write it • Like an essay, but can use sub-headings • Must include word count • Must include bibliography and references • Must include print-outs of your individual stories • Deal with each story in turn, or deal with themes (eg ideas, research, write-up)

7. What to cover • How you got idea for story, and why suitable for target reader (news values) • How you researched it - why you chose sources, what problems you had • How you selected angle, and how you made story ‘fit’ • How you wrote up story, and what you chose to emphasise • Any legal or ethical problems • Evaluation of final result - what did it offer the reader? • What you learned - and what you’d do differently a second time

12. “News editors know vox pops are an easy way to fill space on a thin news day, designers welcome them as useful light relief on a page of otherwise serious copy” (Smith, 2007) • “Choose your interviewees if your question is clearly relevant to a specific section of the population .. Don’t approach people clearly in a hurry, battling to control children” (ibid) • “The traditional news intro, still the dominant form, has two related purposes: to engage the reader instantly and to summarise what the story is all about” (Cole, 2008) • “Interviewing is the chief tool of active journalism. Without talking to people who can give us information or opinions, we can only print what others send us or recycle what has happened” – (Pulford, 2001) • “Headline writers love puns, and editors frequently have to restrain their use. They sit even less easily in copy, where only readers over 55 can identify. Again, the danger is excluding readers. Worst of all is the extended metaphor or pun” (Cole, 2008)

14. Good for reader? • “Readers want more than the news. People want to see pictures of themselves – we ignore the boring bits at our peril” – Simon Irwin, Kent Messenger Group

15. Good for reader? • “Entertainment has superceded the provision of information; human interest has supplanted the public interest; the trivial has triumphed over the weighty .. Traditional news values have been undermined by new values; ‘infotainment’ is rampant” (Franklin, 1997: 4)

16. Good for reader? • “The public sphere, once a restricted space available to white, male, educated elites, has expanded to the point of genuine mass accessibility” (McNair, 2009) • “Oft-criticised trends, such as the rise in consumer and lifestyle coverage, might just as readily be interpreted as the positive influence on journalistic agendas of the rise of feminism, bring with it a new visibility for what were once dismissed as ‘women’s issues’.”

17. Sources • News often what an authoritative source tells a journalist, with minorities and socially disadvantaged ignored (Bell). • Herbert Gans (1980) says journalists require efficiency – therefore limited range of same types of sources. • Stuart Hall (1986) talks of “primary definers” of news who frame what the problem is and set limit for discussion. • Journalists use sources as part of their conventions of objectivity and neutrality. • Sources used, too, to maintain show of balance. Journalists always expected to get both sides – though there’ll always be a range of voices missing. • Richard Keeble (Newspaper Handbook) and Martin Bell - prefer to see committed, opinionated journalism (journalism of “attachment”). Journalists are similar to the sources they use, so same old voices being heard.

18. Referencing • Use quotes to back up your arguments, or to challenge them • Journal articles (Harcup and O’Neill on News Values, on 189 WebCT site) • Lectures and guest speakers • Media commentators (Guardian, Press Gazette), MAC189 delicious site • http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/sep/25/howtowrite

19. Books

20. What happens next • Workshop this week • Submission of self-generated article • Submission of profile • Live news assessment • Three-week break! • Uni opens again on January 10 (but no more MAC189 unless ..) • Catch-up session at 1pm, room 106, on January 18th • Hand in your critical evaluation to Assignment Services on January 18th

21. What happens next • Marks will go on evision, and referral exercises will go on WebCT • Marked work will be returned to Assignment Services – pick it up and read the feedback • New term on January 31st • MAC190 – Introduction to News, Sport and Magazine Journalism B • Or MAC140 – Introduction to Fashion Journalism • Or PR • Good luck!