Students learn to recognize good feature ideas, interview in order to develop features, write feature leads, and organize feature stories. These questions are approached through anthropological research, classical literature, and historical texts, as well as through the formal history of journalism. Students are encouraged to draw conclusions about the nature and logic of news that can be applied to modern news systems. The Journalistic Tradition Students read from the works of some of the best English and American journalists, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Margaret Fuller, Charles Dickens, Stephen Crane, H. L. Mencken, Ernest Hemingway, Edward R. Murrow. James Baldwin, and Tom Wolfe.
Special attention is paid to tone, voice, and imagery, and to theories of reporting.
The links between fiction and nonfiction, between the short story and the modern American magazine piece are explored. Students read and analyze six books of original reporting. Noneditorial problems - printing, advertising. Promotion, and circulation - are also discussed. Emphasis is on practical assignments and the final project, an issue of Manhattan South .