Author: Mr. Write Coach

Stuart Warner can help you become a better writer. Warner has developed a national reputation as an editor and journalism teacher. He has written or edited three Pulitzer Prize-winning entries and edited three other Pulitzer finalists As the writing coach at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, he edited stories than won more than 50 national awards. Currently, Warner teaches journalism at Case Western Reserve University and is a regular contributor to AOL.com. He has been honored numerous times for his own writing. He has also been invited to speak on writing at the Nieman narrative conference at Harvard, the Let’s Do It Better conference at Columbia University, the National Writers Workshop sponsored by the Poynter Institute, the IRE’s national Computer Assisted Reporting workshop and at Capitolbeat, the national seminar for state government reporters. He has also worked with the writers at a number of companies, including Politifact, Key Bank, Signal Cleveland, the Akron Beacon Journal, Cleveland Jewish News, Akron General Hospital and also taught at Cleveland State University.

Sept. 11, 2001 – ‘We had a job … a duty’

(This is an excerpt from “Akron’s Daily Miracle,” copyright University of Akron Press, 2020, edited by Stuart Warner and Deb Van Tassel Warner.)

By Ann Sheldon Mezger

Reuters photo from the 9-11 attack

“David, look at that.”

I can still hear myself say those words, still see him glance up at the TV screen above my desk.

The time had to be about 8:50 a.m. The date was Sept. 11, 2001, a Tuesday not yet seared into memory as simply 9/11. 

I was a Beacon Journal deputy metro editor then and I arrived at work shortly after 8. As usual, one of the first things I did was turn on the television that sat on a shelf bracketed to a pillar in the middle of the third-floor newsroom. The sound was off, CNN’s chatter captioned.

Metro Editor David Hertz, whose desk was next to mine, showed up about 8:30. Since it was primary election day in Akron and a handful of other communities, even fewer staffers than usual were in the newsroom. They would be needed in the evening to write and edit stories after election results came in.

As I began to organize the day’s local news coverage, I looked up from my computer. A CNN caption said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. The image – a shot through a studio window? – captured towers in the distance and a bit of smoke.

I turned off the captioning, switching to sound. The picture changed. A camera crew had gotten close enough to zoom in on a blackened scar venting tendrils of gray smoke. It angled through upper floors and stretched more than halfway across one side of the North Tower.

 “David, look at that.”

We both watched, trying to make sense of what was unfolding. We commented on the crater’s shape, how you could tell where the plane’s wings had slammed into the building. I don’t think either of us grasped just how big the tower was, just how long that tear had to be. A private plane, I thought. Or perhaps a commuter jet.

That it might have been a Boeing 767 with dozens of passengers and crew members aboard was unthinkable.

The smoke turned thick and oily, licked here and there by hot little tongues of orange. More smoke began to seep from other sides of the tower.

I spotted Managing Editor Thom Fladung by the doors to the Beacon Journal’s main staircase. I called to him and he hurried over to join the growing knot of people around my desk, all of us unable to look away from the disaster playing live on television. Editor Jan Leach, who had been about to attend a meeting of the paper’s senior managers, joined us as well.

We speculated. What kind of aircraft? How could such an accident happen? Had a pilot become confused, gone off course?

Then another plane, clearly a full-size jetliner, appeared. A moment later, an enormous fireball blossomed from the adjacent South Tower.

The time was 9:03 a.m., 17 minutes after the first plane had hit. I stopped watching. I could no longer spare the seconds.

“It was just this cascade of knowing it was a very big deal. … It was going to be the biggest news event,” Leach recalls.

We identified places where the public could watch the televised coverage and reporters shot off to get reaction, to capture the fear and horror that likely mirrored our own. Other reporters phoned government offices, police departments and schools to ask about security measures being put into place. Photographers and reporters headed for Cleveland Hopkins and Akron-Canton airports.

Reporter Thrity Umrigar, who would leave the paper a few years later to write best-selling novels and memoirs, reminded me that former metro desk colleague Andrea Louie had moved to New York City. Someone should call her, Umrigar said. Do it, I responded.

Everyone in the newsroom scrambled in similar fashion, but we didn’t realize how quickly a deadline would be upon us.

Publisher Jim Crutchfield had arrived around 9 a.m. after attending a meeting at the East Akron Community House. He was working at his desk when his secretary told him to turn on the TV.

Footage of the fireball erupting as a jetliner hit the World Trade Center played on the screen. He thought he was looking at a horrendous accident until the news anchor identified it as the second strike by a Boeing 767.

He watched as people trapped on the uppermost floors of the towers began jumping to certain death.

He watched as the FAA grounded all domestic flights, diverting planes aloft to the nearest airport for landing.

He watched as a report came in about American Airlines Flight 77, the third of four jetliners seized by terrorists, slamming into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m.

And he decided. The Beacon Journal would publish an extra, a special run of the presses.

“We were not scheduled to be out telling people what was going on until the following morning,” he says. “That just seemed too far away, too late.”

The extra would be the paper’s first since Nov. 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.Before that, on Aug. 14, 1945, an extra trumpeted Japan’s World War II surrender.

“There was always a question,” Crutchfield says, “about the value of an extra … but I also knew that newspapers can get below the surface. I knew that there was a role for us as a newspaper and that people would be hungry for information.”

And he thought people needed reassurance. “Your local newspaper, when it publishes, tells you that something is right with the world.”

Crutchfield huddled with Leach and Fladung.

“We started talking about (the extra) at 10 a.m. . . and in the classic Knight Ridder fashion, we just started organizing,” Fladung recalls. “We determined the deadline right away. We got circulation and the press room, started just walking through the logistics.”

The front and four other pages from that day’s A-section would be cleared of ads and redone, then the entire paper would go to press again with the new edition distributed to newspaper boxes and businesses that sold Beacon Journals.

The goal was to get the extra on the street around 1 p.m. For that to happen, stories needed to be written, edited and laid out by noon.

Fladung assigned Bob Dyer to write the lead story, using material from wire services as well as local information and reaction gathered by other reporters. That decision drew criticism from some of Fladung’s colleagues at other newspapers.

“It wasn’t immediate. It was down the road,” he says. “There were journalism types who particularly pointed to the Beacon Journal as ‘you can’t localize everything.’ ”

But Fladung wanted the main story to have an Akron feel. “I thought we had great writers and I wanted our great writers involved.”

Other local stories began coming together.

Business writer Mary Ethridge rounded up the chaos ensuing in Akron and across the state – the emergency landing of a Boeing 767 in Cleveland because of fears a bomb was aboard, school closings, event cancellations, heightened security just about everywhere.

Jim Mackinnon, also from business, covered the economic impact.

R.D. Heldenfels and Terry Pluto provided columns – TV critic Heldenfels on the networks’ coverage of the attack, and Pluto, who wrote weekly about religion in addition to his sports commentary, on the need for prayer.

Umrigar had an interview with Louie, who could see the towers from her Brooklyn apartment. “I just want to be able to turn it off,” Umrigar quoted Louie as saying.

Fifteen other Beacon Journal reporters provided inserts for the bylined stories.

The redone pages in the extra also included an editorial and four wire stories.

Design of the front page commanded immediate attention.

Susan Kirkman, assistant managing editor for photo, graphics and presentation, had Kathy Hagedorn, the only newsroom artist on a morning shift, start designing A-1. A photo would cover more than half of the page, topped by a 2-inch tall, all-caps headline.

“The hard part is, we were waiting for some photograph because we knew we were on such a tight deadline and that we might not get real pictures,” Kirkman says. “We didn’t know if there were any real pictures.”

Though New York photographers had rushed to the scene when the first plane hit, Kirkman had no idea how long it would take them to return to their studios to transmit their pictures. Falling debris could be making it dangerous to leave a vantage point of relative safety. Roads might be closed or blocked by emergency vehicles.

Then the Associated Press moved a “screen grab,” a shot off a TV, from NBC’s New York affiliate. It showed the smoking North Tower and the fireball eruption as the South Tower was hit.

The image was grainy, but it was what Kirkman was looking for – “the seminal moment, what’s the most important picture that we can put there.”

That big headline also would be very important.

Headlines are crafted by the copy desk, and Fladung started talking early with Jim Kavanagh, the desk’s chief, about both the extra and the next day’s paper.

Every Beacon Journal reader wasn’t going to see both, but Fladung and Kavanagh felt there needed to be a difference, a progression, from one edition to the next.

“The extra was really going to be the shock and awe – what was happening,” Fladung says. “We wanted the next day’s paper to try to do more analysis.”

For the extra’s headline, the copy desk came up with “OH, MY GOD!” The quote was from Dyer’s story, a reaction gathered from TV viewers at the University of Akron, but being heard over and over in the newsroom as well.

“WHO DID THIS?” would scream from Sept. 12’s A-1. “That had to be the outstanding question of the day,” Fladung says.

While enough reporters and photographers were available to write stories and take pictures, copy editors and page designers to put out the extra were in short supply.

Those editors and designers didn’t come to work until mid- or late afternoon. Only a handful of those staff members were in the office on the morning of 9/11, mostly working on the features and weekend sections.

Calls went out to get editors in as quickly as possible. That almost wasn’t necessary, though. A number of staffers came to work on their own once they learned of the attack.

Bruce Winges, then the night managing editor, had just started his vacation along with his wife, Bonnie Bolden, the newsroom’s administrative editor. They canceled their plans and made it to the office around 10:30 a.m. Winges went right to work laying out pages.

“The urgency was,” Winges recalls, “we’ve got to get the extra out. … The whole focus on these five pages was, let’s get those done.”

In all likelihood, the 9/11 edition will remain the last Beacon Journal extra ever printed. Newspaper websites are now the home for “read all about it” breaking stories once trumpeted by newsboys from street corners.

But in 2001, having a Beacon Journal reporter file a breaking story directly to the internet was at best a glimmer in a few far-seeing eyes.

Ohio.com was a separate entity of Knight Ridder Newspapers then, part of its Real Cities network. Stories by Beacon Journal writers appeared on Ohio.com’s home page, but only after publication in the paper. However, if major national or international news broke during the day, the home page could be updated with a wire service story.

Michael Needs, who held dual positions as public editor and liaison with Ohio.com, posted breaking wire stories on the page more than 25 times on 9/11.

“For a lot of people who did not have access to a television,” he says, “but who did have access to a computer, like in offices all around, there was a sense that this was a way that many people were getting the latest information. … It was possibly one of the first times that the internet was looked at as a source of instantaneous reporting.”

Once the extra was sent to the pressroom, the newsroom’s focus shifted to Wednesday’s paper.

Sixteen full pages in the A-section, including the front and two editorial/commentary pages, were earmarked for 9/11 coverage, the majority of it focused on the Akron area.

Forty Beacon Journal reporters and seven photographers contributed material for those pages. The art department produced a center-spread illustration highlighting locations of the day’s significant events.

As he had for the extra, Dyer wrote the main story from wire reports and local news-gathering efforts. Heldenfels and Pluto reworked their earlier columns. Mackinnon broadened his coverage on the economic impact. Ethridge’s roundup fractured into at least five different stories on what was happening at airports, police stations, churches, schools, offices and shopping centers. New topics, such as reprisal concerns by the Arab community, were covered as well.

Paula Schleis filed a report from Somerset County, Pa. The fourth hijacked plane had crashed there at 10:03 a.m., turning picturesque countryside into scorched trees and a debris-strewn field. Accompanying her story was a photo by Phil Masturzo showing investigators combing through the wreckage of United Flight 93.

Local news columnist David Giffels had been working at home that morning on a long-range project. He got to the newsroom about 11 a.m. and was asked to write for A-1.

“I remember honestly feeling overwhelmed,” he says, “like not knowing, like trying to say something and not knowing yet what to say.”

He managed to write anyway, on the danger of not knowing who our enemy was and letting fear dictate our response.

Also working at home that morning was food writer Jane Snow. She had turned on the TV just in time to watch the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

“I watched in horror for about a half hour before I remembered I was a reporter and might be needed at the office,” she recalls.

She came in and asked how she could help. I found her a desk and a phone in metro and asked her to gather accounts from area residents who were in New York or Washington and had witnessed or were otherwise affected by the attacks.

“How will I find them?” she remembers asking.

They’ll contact us, I replied.

And they did.

Snow’s most important caller that day turned out to be a Silver Lake man whose son, George Hessler, had escaped from the North Tower’s 83rd floor, a few floors beneath where the first plane hit. She got Hessler’s phone number and wrote a harrowing story of his descent down the stairs, of encountering firefighters on their way up, of making it to the second floor when the lights went out and the stairwell shook as the adjacent South Tower collapsed.

Wednesday’s front-page photo showed the same moment as the lead picture in the extra. But this image of the second plane’s strike was no screen grab. It was sharp enough to capture the rain of glowing orange debris beneath the fireball.

By early afternoon, pictures from New York and Washington were coming in. Kirkman estimates she looked at thousands of photos that day, selecting the best for possible use. One was an image that became known as Falling Man.

It shows a man wearing a white top and black pants plummeting head first toward the ground against the vertical backdrop of the towers. His arms are at his sides, his body also nearly vertical except for one bent knee. He was one of the estimated 200 people who jumped from the World Trade Center rather than die by fire.

Many newspapers ran the photo. Many others did not.

Kirkman wanted to use the picture, as did Fladung and Winges. Leach overruled them.

“It wasn’t violent,” Leach says. “It wasn’t gory or sensational. But it was so human and I think everybody could look at that and say, ‘What brings a person to that act of desperation?’ And it felt to me like we were invading that person’s privacy.”

Kirkman offers a different perspective.

“For me, that picture represented the victims,” she explains. “That was the only way the victims were represented because everyone else was a survivor – people walking away. … We had all these people represented, but not one picture of the people who died in the building.”

Not all the 9/11 coverage ran on those 16 pages in Wednesday’s A-section.

Much of the Sports front was devoted to the suspension of Major League baseball, the postponement of Saturday’s Ohio State football game and the uncertainty as to whether Sunday’s pro football games would be played. In the Business section, nearly all of the stories dealt with 9/11’s impact on the local, national or world economy.

The Local front, however, had other news – stories that on any other day almost certainly would have run on A-1. A robbery suspect was killed and two Akron SWAT team officers were injured in a gunfight at Copley’s Red Roof Inn. Two Akron councilmen lost their ward seats in the primary. Another Akron councilman was arrested on a felony drug charge of lying to a doctor to get painkillers.

Over the following days and weeks, the newsroom continued its expanded terrorism-related coverage.Columnist Jewell Cardwell wrote almost daily of area residents helping 9/11 victims. And through the newspaper, Akron formed a lasting bond with a New York City fire station.

On the day after the attacks, Crutchfield held a meeting in his office with his divisional and departmental managers. He doesn’t remember why they had gathered, but it wasn’t to discuss 9/11.

“The meeting was about to get underway,” he recalls, “when Jan (Leach) comes in … and she said, ‘You know, people want to know what they can do. They’re just calling. The phones are going crazy out there.’ ”

John Murphy, director of marketing communications, suggested helping New York’s first responders. Someone threw out, “Why don’t we buy them a fire truck?”

The idea stuck.

After the meeting ended, Crutchfield contacted businesses and institutions about partnering with the Beacon Journal to raise money for a truck. He wanted the mayor’s office involved as well. He also called Giffels into his office.

“I knew we needed somebody to be the reporter on it and David was just a reasonable, automatic candidate,” he says.

Giffels jumped at the opportunity to provide what he had searched for in his Wednesday column. An answer.

“Personally, as a journalist, it was a relief because I had something to write about. And what I had to write about was real and providing some kind of an answer at that time when, like I said, I felt like I didn’t have any answers.”

On Sept. 16, Crutchfield kicked off the campaign with a page one Sunday column on the just-established Fire Truck Fund. The goal was to raise $350,000 for New York City, with $325,000 used to buy a fire engine and $25,000 for a police cruiser. Initial campaign partners were the city and FirstMerit Bank, which collected the donations. A coupon to mail in with a contribution ran at the bottom of A-1.

By Tuesday morning, when Giffels’ first fire truck story was published, $22,325.77 had been collected already in addition to $25,000 that the Beacon Journal had pledged. By bank closing time Wednesday, the total had hit $218,952.75.

Other major partners – Akron Community Foundation, the F.W. Albrecht Co., Ohio.com and the University of Akron – signed onto the campaign. Continental General Tire offered to provide the fire truck’s tires.

Children emptied their piggybanks. Organizations held vigils and passed the collection can. The Akron Fire Department sold patriotic T-shirts with proceeds going to the fund.

“I remember being taken, really taken, by how strong this response was,” says Giffels, who saw homemade cards and drawings of fire trucks pile up on his desk.

The campaign ended on Sept. 30, with late donations accepted until Oct. 11. Nearly $1.4 million was raised, enough to buy two EMS vehicles, three police cars and a ladder truck with an $850,000 price tag. (Ten years later, Tom McDonald, a former assistant New York Fire Department commissioner, would tell Dyer that though donations poured into New York from all over the country, no other city contributed more than Akron.)

On Nov. 27, the brand-new truck stopped in Akron en route to New York from the Seagrave Fire Apparatus factory in Clintonville, Wisc. During an evening ceremony downtown, hundreds watched as the truck’s 95-foot-long, flag-topped ladder rose over Dart Street.

Two days later, the Beacon Journal ran a 30-page special section listing every person, organization and business that had donated to the fund. Nearly 50,000 names were on the list.

The truck went into service on Dec. 13 at the New York City fire station in Queens that housed Ladder Company 163. A delegation from Akron, including Crutchfield, Mayor Don Plusquellic and FirstMerit Bank vice president Barbara Matthews, attended the dedication. Giffels wrote about Ladder 163’s first run.

Giffels and Crutchfield each visited the station again over the years before the truck was retired on May 30, 2013. Many other Akron area residents dropped in as well whenever they were in New York.

They were always welcome to see, to touch and to sometimes climb on board Ladder 163, which bore a bronze plaque next to the driver’s door: “A gift from the people of Greater Akron, Ohio, in honor of the victims of September 11, 2001.”

Every U.S. daily newspaper, of course, has its own 9/11 story to tell – where reporters were sent, what headlines were written, which pictures were published. I can hardly imagine being in a New York or Washington newsroom on that day, worrying not only about getting a paper out but about whose name I might recognize once the dead and injured were identified.

There’s one aspect to the Beacon Journal’s story, however, that is unique.

For our newsroom, 9/11 also was about healing.

Healing. The word sounds almost offensive when linked with so monstrous a day, with so many lives taken, with the wars that would follow.

But it’s the correct word to use.

On Sept. 10, 2001, ours was a newsroom still in mourning.

That spring, the chief librarian and eight members of the Newspaper Guild lost their jobs, victims of the first newsroom layoffs in the Beacon Journal’s history. That summer, 18 more newsroom employees would take company buyouts.

Twenty-seven of our colleagues – managers, reporters, copy editors, artists, librarians – were no longer with us.

In the years to come, there would be other layoffs and buyouts as the Beacon Journal downsized and downsized and downsized some more. But those losses of 2001 were the first and, as such, they cut the deepest.

They hurt the most.

The spring and summer of 2001 was a time of dress-in-black days, of frantic searches for job openings to share with co-workers who needed them, of group sessions to talk out our uncertainty and sorrow.

We never stopped doing good work, of putting out a newspaper we could be proud of, but our collective heart and enthusiasm just wasn’t in it.

Then on a beautiful September morning, terror came down from the sky and we were jolted into remembering who we were.

Giffels, perhaps, describes this best. “Probably almost every American felt this helplessness (on 9/11). In a newsroom, we didn’t feel that. We had a job … a duty that it gave us.”

Our numbers might have been fewer on Sept. 11, 2001, but our mission had never been greater.

We all pulled together and, in doing so, forgot to dwell on what had been.

Bringers of Change to Akron and Goodyear

Excerpted from Akron’s Daily Miracle (copyright 2020, University of Akron Press)

Goodyear opened its airdock to the public on Sept. 13, 1986. Six days later, Sir James Goldsmith bought his first Goodyear shares and the takeover attempt was on.
Goodyear opened its airdock to the public on Sept. 13, 1986 for a United Way promotion. Six days later, Sir James Goldsmith bought his first Goodyear shares and the takeover attempt was on.

By Stuart Warner

Change was on the way to the Beacon Journal and Akron in 1986.

On Sunday, March 30, Executive Editor Dale Allen headed south on I-77 to the Akron-Canton Airport to meet Knight Ridder Vice President Larry Jinks. 

“A dozen possibilities passed through my brain, most of them making no sense at all,” Allen wrote in his unpublished memoir about the summons from his boss. Was he being moved out of the newsroom?  To another paper? Maybe they were going to fire him.

But there was one possibility he hadn’t considered: He was offered the job as editor of the paper.  Corporate had been unhappy with the bickering between Editor Paul Poorman and General Manager Jim Gels and was replacing both of them.  Gels was shipped to the company’s paper in Duluth, Minn.,  to replace publisher John McMillion. McMillion was coming to Akron as the paper’s first publisher since Ben Maidenberg retired in 1975.  Poorman was offered another job at the Beacon, but decided to resign.  The job was Dale’s if he wanted it.  He did.

Tim Smith, who had been promoted to managing editor by Poorman, also left to teach at Kent State as Allen ascended to the top spot. 

“Dale sat between Tim Smith and Paul Poorman, not fully in charge of the newsroom,”  recalled John Greenman, then the Beacon’s assistant managing editor for metro news.  “When Smith and Poorman left, Dale was free to reframe the newsroom to take advantage of the people he’d hired and promoted and, as importantly, to reorient (or relieve) veterans from the Kent State coverage, who’d become smug and lacked intensity.”

Dale found just the right person to bring a new intensity to the newsroom at his former paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Larry Williams was a rising star in Knight Ridder.  His degree was in engineering, but his passion was journalism. He joined the Inquirer  in 1971, advancing to business editor, where he supervised two Pulitzer Prize-winning projects, including the coverage of the near-disaster at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant.  “He turned what had been a small undistinguished business news department into one of the nation’s best,” said Gene Roberts, legendary former editor of the Inquirer. “But his influence on the paper went far beyond business news into major investigative reporting and the design and layout of the paper. His talent and drive were exceptional.”

Tim Smith had supervised only metro news and the copy desk as managing editor. “Dale … delegated vast authority” to Williams, Greenman said. “Larry would not have come to Akron without it. Indeed, he turned down the job of Sunday Business Editor of the New York Times to come to the Beacon Journal.”

I was the Beacon’s local columnist, writing Warner’s Corner, when Larry arrived. I was known mostly for wearing a hat and writing about Stowbillies, Kenmorons and empty storefronts in Akron’s downtown. Not Larry’s kind of journalism. And, oh, yes, I constantly took pokes at “Muffy” and “Buffy” and everyone else who lived in the affluent suburb of Hudson, where Larry and his family bought a rambling Colonial-style home.  My Hudson humor was often not appreciated by the village’s newest resident. And more than once he killed a column with questionable taste, like the time a politician in Columbus proposed hiring prostitutes to tell people about the danger of AIDS.   I innocently wondered how they would fill out an application, including the question, “Position Desired?”

I had no idea of the impact Larry’s hire would have on me and all of us at the paper and, perhaps, on the city of Akron.

Within weeks after Larry joined the paper, financier Sir James Goldsmith bought his first shares of stock in the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.  This was a man who described himself as “a bringer of change.”  In Larry Williams, he met his match.

**************

On Monday afternoon, October 7, Business Editor Doug Oplinger noted a sharp rise in Goodyear’s stock.  Oplinger grew up in nearby Springfield Twp., then returned to work for the Beacon Journal after graduating from Northwestern University.  He started in Akron as a metro reporter, moved to the business desk when it consisted of only three people and had been promoted to business editor just a few months before Larry Williams arrived.  Oplinger stayed at the paper until he retired as managing editor in 2017 after 46 years at the Beacon.

His institutional knowledge told him something was up when the stock closed at a 15-year high of almost $37 at the end of the trading day.

“In Akron, just about everybody had a relationship with a tire company,” Oplinger told Bowling Green State University years later.  “We were the rubber capital of the world.  We had for major companies here and Goodyear, by far, was the largest employer.  It was tens of thousands of people who had a direct connection to the company.”

Oplinger assigned reporters Rick Reiff and Larry Pantages to write a brief story for the Tuesday paper about the uptick and the rumor that a New Jersey chemical company, GAF Corp., was making a play for the tire company.

“The activity created enough concern at Goodyear for chairman Robert E. Mercer to send a letter to all employees saying that the company is closely watching the stock market,” they wrote.

There was reason for concern but it originated far from the Jersey shore.

On Friday, Oct. 17, someone purchased 2.1 million shares of Goodyear stock.  By that time, the Beacon’s business department was at full throttle, sometimes updating stories and changing headlines every few hours. Larry Williams became a driving force behind the coverage.

 “The story could not have been made more appealing to Larry,” Dale Allen wrote in his unpublished memoir. “He understood the language of finance;  terms I had read a few times but had not a clue what they meant. Arbitrageurs, junk bonds, leveraged buyouts – these were the things we read about that happened on Wall Street and other financial centers, but not in little old Akron, with its folksy title as the Rubber Capital of the World.

Dale noted that Larry found a willing partner in Oplinger, a fellow Eagle Scout. “Bringing Doug together with Larry Williams was like touching a match to a gentle mixture of  kerosene and enthusiasm,” Allen wrote. “It seemed Doug had been waiting his whole career to find someone to light his fuse, to provide him with clarity and purpose, even if he did not really need much of a kick start.”

Together, and with the help of editors like John Greenman and Deb Van Tassel from Metro and more than 50 staffers, they produced the kind of news coverage that you’d expect to find in the Wall Street Journal, not the Akron Beacon Journal.

“Larry was modeling the Philadelphia Inquirer’s coverage of Three Mile Island,” recalled Greenman, who later became publisher of Knight Ridder’s paper in Columbus, Ga.

Thirty-nine reporters and eight photographers worked on that coverage, “many for weeks, and most with no days off and little sleep during and beyond the first, weeklong crisis,” recalled Michael Pakenham, associate editor of The Inquirer during TMI, writing 25 years later in the Baltimore Sun.

At the end, the Inquirer wrote a novella-length reconstruction, Greenman said. Many reporters contributed. Steve Lovelady wrote through their drafts, constructing and maintaining the narrative line. One editor, Larry, supervised.

Seven years later, Greenman noted, Larry modeled the Beacon’s efforts after the Inquirer’s.        

************

The coverage ratcheted up after October 25, when British financier Sir James Goldsmith was identified as the potential buyer of Goodyear.

In addition to Goldsmith, Mercer and the other usual suspects like Akron Mayor Tom Sawyer and Congressman John Seiberling, the grandson of Goodyear’s founder, readers of the Beacon were introduced to characters we had never met before:

  • Steve Seigfried, a Goodyear Aerospace engineer who represented the worst of Akron’s fears … he had already been laid off by three other companies. Now his latest job was in jeopardy, too.
  • Jeffrey Berenson, a lead partner in Merrill Lynch’s merger and acquisition group who was identified as the primary architect of the takeover bid.
  • Donald Walsh, a vice president at Akron’s Merrill Lynch brokerage who was feeling the heat from local residents for the corporate parent’s role in fueling the takeover attempt.
  • Rufus Johnson, the janitor at the Goodyear barbershop whose comments about “Rambo time” bolstered the company’s spirits.
  • Mark Blitstein, Goodyear’s director of investor relations, the company’s lead defender.

The business department had only three staffers when Dale Allen had arrived in 1980.  He had tripled the team by 1986, but they were still working around the clock to keep pace with the Goodyear story.

Larry Pantages, Rick Rieff and Greg Gardner were the primary writers, with Glenn Proctor, Katie Byard, Ron Shinn and others taking us behind the scenes of board rooms, union halls and stock exchanges.  The ’80s had ushered in an era of Wall Street greed unseen since the Roaring Twenties, and Akron understood the awful implications of a successful raid on the city’s largest employer. Goodyear assets would be sold off for a quick profit. Research and development and corporate philanthropy would likely be reduced, even halted. Workers would be laid off. The only winners would be Goldsmith, investment bankers and large shareholders with no stake in the city’s wellbeing. The losers would be the community at large.

Pantages remembers the day reporters scored a major coup:  a phone interview with Goldsmith.

“The PR person we called almost every day, Lissa Perlman, had finally come through for us in setting that up. Maybe that was the interview where Goldsmith said, ‘I am a potential bringer of change,’ and we realized from his own lips what the threat to the city and the employees really was. I think he also clarified himself a little by adding something like, ‘I say ‘potential’ because nothing’s happened yet.’”

They rushed back to their desk to write the story for the final afternoon edition.

“When the papers came off the press, we grabbed a bundle and jumped in the car and drove to the Dubl Tyme restaurant right across the street from the HQ. We wanted to give the papers away and get reaction from workers during their lunch break. Much to our chagrin, we went into the place (I think it was me and Greg Gardner; maybe Reiff, too) and there were like three people in there. Not what we were hoping for.”

Business wasn’t the only angle getting coverage.  The government team went full bore, with Bill Hershey reporting from Washington, D.C., Mary Grace Poidamani from Columbus and Charlene Nevada from Akron City Hall.  Meanwhile metro reporters like Terry Oblander, Laura Haferd, Jim Carney and others were producing stories that showed the impact of the takeover bid on the community. Stories like:

  • A church in Akron refusing to sell its 100 shares of Goodyear stock even though it needed $150,000 to buy a new roof.
  • High school students starting a stock-buying campaign and writing letters to Congress and to Merrill Lynch.
  • Joan Lukich, whose family had more than 200 years combined service at Goodyear, wearing a sandwich board and walking the streets of Akron, urging citizens to buy the company’s stock.  “United We’ll Stand, Divided We’ll Fall,” was her message.

Gaylon White, a Goodyear PR exec, was reading every word.  The former journalist was assigned to study media coverage of takeover attempts, both previous and present.  He said the Beacon Journal’s coverage of the financial angles was almost as sophisticated as he had read in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. “But no major newspaper had ever covered the impact on the community like the Beacon did. … You guys ought to win a Pulitzer,” he told me back then.

White had other jobs, too.  He was told by Corporate Communications Director William Newkirk to “be disruptive.”  Goodyear wanted the media to show the public that Goldsmith wasn’t like us.

To that end, White enlisted a lot of help from Warner’s Corner, feeding me stories about Goldsmith’s lascivious lifestyle, shoeshine stand operator Rufus Johnson’s fighting words to Mercer (It’s Rambo time!) and a little item that went ‘round the world: The corporate raider had a distaste for anything rubber, especially rubber bands,

The guy is buying the world’s largest tiremaker and he has a rubber-phobia?  My readers ate it up, especially after I published his New York address and urged them to send him gobs of rubber bands.

Maybe it worked.  By mid-November, Mercer confided to associates that Goldsmith had won, that there was nothing the company could do to prevent the takeover.  Yet a few days later, after facing a raucous crowd of Goodyear workers at a Congressional hearing and taking a tongue-lashing from Sieberling (“Who the hell are you?” he bellowed), Goldsmith walked away from the deal, selling back his stock to Goodyear for a $94 million profit – not bad for 10 weeks work.

Years later, Denis Kelly, a former Merrill Lynch executive, told me he never understood why Goldsmith settled when victory was at hand. “He was not the sort of fellow to back down.”

Then he paused as he recalled the events of those days.

“You know, he really did not like all those bags and bags of rubber bands showing up. That bothered him. He said, ‘Why are they sending me all those rubber bands?’ “

                                                            ****************

The Goodyear War was over on Thursday, November 22, though the reverberations from the takeover attempt would be felt for years to come. The next day, Larry Williams told me I would be the lead writer on a team that would produce a narrative reconstruction of what had just happened.  I wasn’t sure why he chose me, given our disagreements over my columns. Maybe Dale had told him about some of the long-form stories I had written as religion writer. Perhaps it was because of the sources I had developed as the columnist. Regardless, I immediately began clipping and reading every story we had written about Goodyear since the day the Airdock was opened in September.  

That weekend he and I met at the office and put together a detailed outline.  Monday morning, November 24, we went to work.

By Monday evening, I was, in sports parlance, choking.  Looking back now, the task we faced then seems almost impossible.  Our goal was to fill an eight-page section with 15,000 to 20,000 words, much of it new reporting.  And we had less than a week to finish.  The section was scheduled to hit the newsstands on Sunday, Nov. 30, three days after Thanksgiving.

I was sensitive about my role on the project.  The other reporters on the team were Melissa Johnston from the metro staff, Reiff and Pantages. Williams, Oplinger and Greenman were the editors.

There was also resentment among the other business writers who had been covering the story 24/7 for several weeks that I was on the team at all.  And I admit, I had no idea how to spell or pronounce arbitrageur before I began the assignment.  I thought a raider played for Oakland.

Maybe that is why I found myself struggling to find any words at all as I began to write the first chapter that Monday afternoon on my Commodore 64 in my home office.  By midnight I still had nothing.  By 2 a.m. Tuesday I had deleted blocks and blocks of copy.  The green screen was still blank.  My wife, Deb Van Tassel, told me to go to bed, start again tomorrow.  I couldn’t do that.  I couldn’t face the rest of them with empty pages. By 5 a.m. I was fading fast.  Sometime between 5:30  and 6 a.m. I fell asleep on the couch next to my desk with not a word written.

I awoke re-energized and at dawn on Tuesday, Nov. 25.  I started writing again at 7 a.m.  The nap had re-energized me.  By 9 a.m. I had a full draft of the first chapter.  The solution had been simple.  On Saturday, Sept. 13, 1986, Goodyear opened its airdock to the public for the first time in more than 50 years, according to news reports.  More than 300,000 turned out to watch.  Traffic was so bad that space hero John Glenn couldn’t reach the site.  I placed each of the main characters at that moment in time in the drama that would play out as The Goodyear War.  And the story began like this:

“The sun seemed to be shining on Akron as it had few times in recent history.

“At a few minutes past 11 a.m., the 600-ton front doors of the Goodyear Airdock began sliding apart ever so slowly.

“Hearts pounded as fast as the Akron’s Symphony Orchestra’s timpani drums rising to the first crescendo of the theme from 200l: A Space Odyssey.

“Men and women cried.

“It was a day to remember where you were.”

I showered quickly, got to work by 9:30 a.m., and no one on the team had any idea that I had pulled an all-nighter.

From there, the rest of the narrative started to flow.

I went to work on chapters two and three, which introduced our two main characters, raider Goldsmith and Goodyear’s Mercer. 

As they continued to report, Reiff and Pantages worked on chapters four through six, which took us into this new world of finance that most of us knew little about. Yet they made it understandable for the folks in Akron.  An excerpt:

“As the Goodyear rumors were circulating, another takeover battle was ending that would dramatize the new power of corporate raiders and portend bad news for Goodyear.

“Campeau Corp., a Canadian real estate firm, as in the process of a successful hostile takeover of the much bigger Allied Stores chain.  Campeau’s revolutionary weapon was an equity contribution, some $1 billion from its investment banking firm, First Boston Corp.  This was a departure from the usual takeover, in which a raider relied primarily on borrowing (often ‘junk bonds’) to pay the costs of a tender offer for all or some of the target company’s shares.  The risk arbitrageurs, financial pros who invest in stocks of targeted companies, had to decide whether the potential reward of lining up with the raider offset the risk a deal would fall through.”

Six months earlier, not many of us would have had a clue what that meant.  Now it was dinner conversation in Akron.

Still, there seemed an insurmountable among of work to finish by our Saturday night deadline.

Melissa Johnston continued to interview people in the community as I wrote.  Pantages and Reiff scored an interview with Mercer, who accounted the most minute details of his lunch meeting with Goldsmith at the financier’s New York townhouse.

“Several bottles of wine were nearby in buckets,” they wrote.

“Goldsmith offered some to Mercer.  He declined. ‘I don’t like to drink at noon,’ Mercer told Goldsmith.

“’Would you care for some water?’ Goldsmith asked.

“’That would be helpful,’ Mercer said.

“’Fizzy or otherwise,’ Goldsmith asked.

“’Otherwise,’ Mercer replied.”

Getting that kind of detail while still writing took time.  We were working past midnight every day but by late Wednesday we realized we’d have to work through Thanksgiving Day, even if we already had plans.

“I remember walking into the newsroom at mid-morning on Thanksgiving Day  to check on the story’s progress,” Allen recalled in his memoir. “The first person I saw was Larry Williams, his feet propped up on a desk in the middle of the newsroom, sound asleep, a file folder crammed with notes strewn across his lap. He had been at the paper throughout the previous night. For Larry, that was probably a very exciting way to spend Thanksgiving.”

Williams did give us two hours off in the afternoon to have dinner with our families.  I remember swallowing some turkey and mashed potatoes with my wife and our 2-year-old, who most people knew then as Baby Corner.  Then I must have crashed for a nap.  Once again I was refreshed and back in the office by 5 p.m.

We continued to write until 4 o’clock Friday morning, completing all 11 chapters, some 20,000 words.

All that was left when we returned at noon was the final edit.  Piece of cake, I assumed, even though I hadn’t had time for any cake or pie on the holiday.  I was used to my copy sailing through the desk.  How long could this take?  Three or four more hours and we’d be done, I thought.

I’d never experienced the kind of deep dive into a story Larry Williams put us through for the next 20 hours.  He questioned every assertion, wanted more information for every … .  It was a clinic in professional editing.

But there were seven of us working on the final draft, and I know that when everyone tries to put his own fingerprints onto the text it can spoil a good story, so  I sat down at the editing terminal and refused to budge through revisions of the first few chapters.  I also said something else that did not endear me to my colleagues. “The first three chapters (which I had written) are in really good shape.  Why don’t we speed things up by starting at chapter four?”

Uh, no.  Larry Williams was not about to skip over a single word.  We started with page one, line one, and worked our way meticulously through the draft, six others talking while I typed in most of their suggestions.

As the hours passed that night into morning, we discovered that chapter eight, which I hadn’t written, was based on a false premise, and had to be totally revised.  I finally relinquished my seat and sacked out on a nearby couch as the other six hashed through a couple of thousand words.

By chapter nine, I was ready to go again and managed to regain control.  But as we approached the finish, I realized we had no ending.  Writers struggle over their lead, but often forget the significance of a great finish.  I had nothing.  Was I going to face another writer’s block?

Then one of my colleagues noted that Goldsmith had never been to Akron through the ordeal.

And there was our walk-off.

“Left behind was testimony to the enormous power of Goldsmith’s brand of capitalism,” we wrote. “He had terrified Akron without ever once setting foot in the city.”

 *************

We finished the final draft at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 29. Then it was time for Executive News Editor Bruce Winges, Art Director Art Krummel, Assistant Managing Editor for News Colleen Murphy and their staffs to take over. Copy editor Mickey Porter line edited every word, with Larry Williams at his side, struggling to stay awake.

They had already begun some preparation earlier in the week, but they had no idea how much clay they would have to mold until they arrived much earlier than usual that day.  Typically, Saturday nights are slow, most of the pages for the Sunday paper prepared in advance.  But when Deb Van Tassel and I stopped by 44 E. Exchange St. that evening, it was as busy as an Election Night, with copy editors, page designers and artists, not to mention all the folks in the composing room, scurrying to make their 11 p.m. deadline.

The final product was simply outstanding.  The layout of the eight-page section was clean, bold.  The photos, surrounded by a gray border, jumped off the page.  Artist Dennis Balogh’s Page 1 illustration captured the turmoil of the previous 10 weeks.  And the headline said it all: “The Goodyear War … Hard to tell the winner from the loser.”

I guess our readers appreciated it, because we reprinted thousands of copies of the special section.  We also sent copies of the section to journalists around the country.  In those days before the internet, that was the only way to promote your own work, and we thought others might take notice.

They did.

Dale Allen was on the Pulitzer Prize Jury in March of 1987, one of dozens of journalists judging the best work of the previous year in the different categories.  Dale was among the jurors judging the photography entries, but during a break for lunch he got some unexpected news.

“Seated next to me was an editor, whose name I have forgotten, who was a member of the jury charged with selecting the winner in the local general reporting category,” Dale wrote in his memoir.  “It was in that category that we had submitted our coverage of the attempted takeover of Goodyear by Sir James Goldsmith.

“I had never met the juror before but, when we made our introductions, he told me that our Goodyear coverage was among the best he had seen that morning. He said something like this:

 “’I haven’t seen all of the entries yet, but the one you guys submitted was the best I’ve seen so far.’ Then, he added something to the effect that he had never seen a story so well reported in all  his years as a journalist.”

The names of the finalists are supposed to be kept secret, but back then, someone was always leaking them and Dale had a heads-up that we were on the list.  The top three entries in each category are then sent to the Pulitzer’s Board of Directors, which selects the winner. 

And when the prizes were announced on April 17, 1987, Dale already knew that outcome, courtesy of his former boss, Philadelphia Inquirer Editor Gene Roberts. 

I wish he had given me at least a hint because I was out speaking to a community group and missed the initial celebration.  But since Publisher John McMillion wouldn’t bend his policy of no alcohol in the newsroom,  I was back in time when the champagne bottles were uncorked at the Cascade Holiday Inn that evening.

At first, the festivities seemed a little subdued; I thought it should be a little more like my days in sports, where the winning teams knew how to party.  So I grabbed a bottle, popped the cork, and dumped the bubbly over Larry Williams’ head. 

Many congratulatory telegrams followed.  Robert Mercer wrote to Dale Allen: “The Beacon Journal saved Goodyear.”

Maybe. Maybe not.  Because of Goldsmith, Goodyear was never the same company again. To pay for Goldsmith’s retreat, Goodyear had to sell off assets, including the company’s jewel, Goodyear Aerospace, and lay off workers.  Within the next 10 years, it surrendered its crown as the world’s biggest tiremaker to Bridgestone of Japan. 

Goldsmith had changed Akron forever.

Larry Williams brought change to the Beacon Journal newsroom as well.  He only remained at the paper for three years before he was promoted to Knight Ridder’s Washington bureau.  He died at age 74 on Dec. 9, 2019.  But his legacy lives on with those who worked with him, even though not all of us appreciated his impact at the time.

We remained at odds over my column so I never really thanked him for the lessons learned that one long week reconstructing the Goodyear siege.  But when I returned to editing a few years later, I hope I was able to infuse at least some of the same kind of passion and attention to detail into the writing of my reporters.

Others had a similar experience.

“I remember telling Dale that Larry put me into therapy,” John Greenman recalled about his daily story meetings with the managing editor.

“’But you became a strong assigning editor,’ Dale said.

“True enough.”   

Indeed we were all better off for the experience.

Interviewing tips

Ten Tips for a Better Interview
By Anonymous
Created Oct 2 2007 – 10:19am
International Center for Journalists, http://www.icfj.org, October 2, 2007
1. Be prepared! Always read up on the subject you are reporting about and the person you are interviewing. Your source will appreciate your effort, and you will be able to skip questions that can be answered by an assistant, book or document. When scheduling the appointment, ask your source to suggest documents or other sources of information about the topic you will discuss. The interviewee will appreciate your interest and often share valuable documents before the interview. Make sure your tape recorder has batteries that work. Bring an extra tape as well as pens and notebook.

2. Set the rules of the interview right up front! Be sure your subject understands the story you are working on (this will help keep the interview on track). Additionally, the interviewee must understand that everything they say is “on the record.” It is best to establish these ground rules when making the interview appointment. Although most government officials have enough experience with the media to indicate when something is “off-the record” or “on background,” other experts may not understand the differences. Remember that an upfront clarification may be required (especially when your source’s job or life could be endangered by being quoted).

3. Be on time! The worst impression you can make on a source is being late for the interview.

4. Be observant! Observe details of the place and of your interviewing partner; this can add color to your story. If you are interviewing people in their home or office, be sure to get a good look around and note what you see. For example, they may have some old photos that show them in a more personal light. You may start an interview with assumptions about a person and leave with a completely different impression. However, this may be exactly what your source intended. Perception is a tricky business! Try to talk to others, colleagues or friends of your source, to get a bigger picture.

5. Be polite. Don’t rush your source! It is important to establish a polite rapport and a level of comfort for the interviewee. Some interviewees, on the other hand, need a couple minutes to become comfortable talking to reporters. Even though you may only have 30 minutes for an interview, you should not rush your subject. If you sense the interviewee is in a hurry, adjust your timing accordingly. Keep in mind, everyone is different. Taking the time to get to know your sources will prove valuable, especially when you need to call with follow-up questions or use them as a source for future stories. If the interview goes well, it may even go beyond the scheduled time. Give yourself plenty of time between appointments to avoid scheduling conflicts.

6. Listen but don’t be afraid to interrupt when you don’t understand! Keep your audience in mind! One reason you are conducting this interview is to explain it to your readers. If your subject uses scientific jargon or explanations only his/her peers would understand, politely interrupt and ask for further explanation. Never be embarrassed about not knowing something.

7. Silence is golden. Sooner or later you will have to ask the tough questions that your subject may be loath to discuss. When you start asking those provocative questions, the answers most likely will be short, useless or carefully worded. You may not get an answer at all. If this occurs, look your source in the eye and don’t say a word. In most cases, your opponent will begin to feel uncomfortable and begin to share information again. If this doesn’t work, ask for sources who might be able to answer your question.

8. Maintain eye contact! A reporter who spends most of the interview bent over taking notes or looking into a notebook can be as disconcerting as a tape recorder in an interviewee’s face. While taking notes and recording the interview, maintain as much eye contact as possible. Learn to take abbreviated notes looking down only once in a while so you can focus on your interviewee. This will make the interview more like a conversation, and enable everyone to be more relaxed.

9. Before your leave… ask your source if there is anything that you might have forgotten to ask. Perhaps the interviewee is burning to tell you useful information, but you did not even think to ask that question. Don’t leave without getting a contact number or e-mail address and a good time to call with follow-up questions. Always ask for other sources. Colleagues or friends of the interviewee may be more knowledgeable or willing and able to speak to you. Thank your source for spending time talking with you before you leave.

10. Review your notes right after the interview! Don’t wait until the end of the day or later in the week to review your notes. Go over them right away, while everything is fresh in your mind, filling in your shorthand and elaborating on your observations. Skip that date for drinks with your office pals until after you have reviewed and organized your notes.

Lexicon of Leads – from Jack Hart

Writing guru Jack Hart defines a variety of types of leads in his book A Writer’s Coach.
Here is a list aimed at improving our lexicon of leads:
Straight Leads
1. Summary Leads:
The University of Oregon must move more women into higher-level faculty jobs or face federal sanctions. (12/24/92, B1)
This is the spring from which all journalistic waters flow. Summary leads summarize (what else?) the most important idea in the story. They often top inverted-pyramid news stories, the most traditional form. Because a good summary lead makes meaning instantly clear, it’s often the preferred form for breaking-news and issue stories.
2. Blind Leads:
The state’s land-use planning agency on Friday chose a former city planner from Eugene to be its new director. (5/6/89, D4)
A blind lead is a summary lead that leaves out potentially confusing detail. The lead cited here omits the name of the planning agency (the Department of Land Conservation and Development) and the city planner, who was relatively unknown statewide.
A “catch-all graf” immediately follows a blind lead. The catch-all includes the specific detail omitted from the lead.
3. Wraps:
Thursday’s storm caused the deaths of a Salem woman who broke her neck in a fall, a Bend man who had a heart attack while shoveling snow and a Eugene teen-ager struck by a skidding car.
An editor’s order to “wrap it” means to combine several items. The reporter usually packages the items under a lead that refers to all of them.
4. Shirttail Leads:
“A man taking photographs of Portland’s skyline about 2:15 a.m. Sunday apparently was struck by a car and knocked into the Willamette River off the Interstate 5 ramp to Interstate 84….”
“Another accident Friday, this one involving a hit-and-run driver in Southwest Washington, left a Lynnwood, Wash., man in serious condition….” (10/8/90, B3)
The shirttail is the alternative to the wrap lead. The reporter writes a summary lead focusing on the most newsworthy element in the wrap. Then he hangs the remaining items, each with its own lead, from the first element’s “shirttails.”
Shirttail leads are traditional on meeting stories. The first lead targets the most important item on the agenda. The remaining items are introduced with an “in-other-business” transition.
Feature Leads
1. Anecdotal Leads:
Richard Leakey likes to tell about the day in 1950 when he was a 6-year-old whining for his parents’ attention. Louis and Mary Leakey were digging for ancient bones on the shores of Lake Victoria, but their little boy wanted to play. He wanted lunch. He wanted his mother to cuddle him. He wanted something to do. “Go find your own bone,” said his exasperated father, waving Richard off toward scraps of fossils lying around the site. What the little boy found was the jawbone — the best ever unearthed — of an extinct giant pig. As he worked away at it with the dental picks and brushes that served for toys in the paleontologists’ camp, he experienced for the first time the passion of discovery. (Kathleen Merryman in the Tacoma News Tribune)
Here’s a true anecdotal lead, as opposed to all the other kinds of feature leads. As an anecdote, the lead takes the form of a short narrative with a beginning, middle and end. The end is particularly important. It’s analogous to the punch line in a joke — it wraps up the story with a flourish that brings things to a apt conclusion.
An anecdotal lead should illustrate the story’s central theme. Kathleen Merryman’s anecdote, for example, explains something central about her subject, Richard Leakey.
2. Narrative Leads:
They pulled the car to the side of the road, turned off the motor and waited silently as the memories washed over them in a series of gentle waves…. (Tom Hallman, 3/8/90, B1)
A narrative lead simply launches an action line. It’s not part of an anecdote, necessarily. But it puts central characters into a scene and begins telling the story that pits those characters against some kind of complication. Narrative leads are — surprise! — most appropriate to narrative stories. But they work on other kinds of stories, too. The bookend narrative, for example, begins with some relevant action, turns to standard news-feature style for the middle of the story and completes the narrative for the story kicker.
3. Scene-Setter Leads:
A woman with tormented eyes talks to herself as she plays a battered piano in Ward D’s dayroom. Other psychiatric patients shuffle on the beige linoleum or stare from red-and-green vinyl chairs. A bank of windows opens to a fenced courtyard. Outside…. (Brian Meehan, 10/27/93, D1)
Scene-setters open with description. They may contain some action, as is the case here. But the main point is to create a stage on which action can unfold or to give a sense of place important to the focus of the story. Brian Meehan’s story concerned conditions at Dammasch State Hospital. So a description of those conditions was an appropriate way to begin.
4. Scene-Wraps or Gallery Leads:
A man claiming to be a Catholic priest sits in a Santa Claus suit in a wheelchair outside a Southeast Portland supermarket, collecting money for the “Holy Order of Mary Inc.”Across town, a supposed South African visitor asks a holiday-spirited shopper for directions to a local church. The South African then launches into a complicated tale that soon has the Portlander withdrawing $2,000 from the bank…. Elsewhere, a boiler-room telephone sales company…. (Jim Long, 12/13/91, B1))
Scene-wraps illustrate trend stories. They show that the same thing is happening in a variety of places. Because they consist of a series of pictures, they’re also called “galleries.”
5. Significant Detail Leads:
Hidden beneath a heap of inner-tubes in a tiny storeroom on an island in the middle of the Vistula River is the statue of Lenin that stood for decades inside the Gdansk Shipyard. (6/18/91, A3)
As you might expect, this story explored the continuing influence of Communism and central planning on the operation of the shipyard and the economy of Poland. The statue of Lenin — hidden, but still in the neighborhood — perfectly symbolized the story’s central theme. And it perfectly illustrates the use of a significant detail to craft a lead.
6. The Single-Instance Lead:
For five days, Alice’s husband, high on drugs, threatened to kill her. He hit her and abused her. Terrified, Alice fled the house when she finally got the chance and ran to a local business to call the police. “He would kill me. He’s very scary,” Alice said. “He would walk through walls if he had to.” The police advised her to contact the Domestic Violence Resource Center in Hillsboro, and Alice found her way there. (12/7/89, WM1)
The single-instance lead uses one example to illustrate a larger topic. For that reason, single-instance leads are also called “microcosm leads.” In this case, Alice’s story was a gateway to a larger story on the Domestic Violence Resource Center.
Single-instance leads are a mainstay of magazine writing. In fact, they’re almost required for stories in the most popular women’s magazines. They’ve spread rapidly into newspaper writing, to the point that some critics now complain about their overuse.
7. Word Play Leads:
In Michael Crichton’s previous novel, “Jurassic Park,” a tropical island has been transformed into a zoo whose denizens are dinosaurs brought to life by a group of greedy, irresponsible scientists who have been cloning around. (2/1/92, D2)
Word-play is essentially lighthearted. Word-play leads therefore work best on less-than-serious stories. They’re popular in sports and entertainment, but they can succeed at grabbing and delighting readers in other forms as well.
Dangerous Leads
1. Question Leads:
What’s black and orange and the worst nightmare for teams headed to the state football playoffs? (10/28/95, C1)
Some editors simply ban question leads, reasoning that readers want answers, not questions. But George Orwell assures us that the only rule in writing is that there are no rules. So let’s concede that question leads occasionally work, for all the right reasons.
They often fail because they seldom perform the basic function of a lead — stating the central theme that organizes and explains the entire story. Furthermore, they can be irritating. Readers probably do resent frivolous questions when what they really want is news.
Still, some stories deal with fundamental questions. So a question lead can be appropriate. Nonetheless, question leads seldom represent the best solution. It pays to be especially cautious when using them.
2. Quote Leads:
Quotation leads were banned in some newsrooms, too. The rationale was similar to the justification used for banning question leads: The chances that a quote was the best way to express the story’s theme were awfully slim.
But quote leads can work wonderfully well, too. Consider the famous Saul Pett lead for a 1963 AP Newsfeatures story on Dorothy Parker: “Are you married my dear?” “Yes, I am.” “Then you won’t mind zipping me up.” “Zipped up, Dorothy Parker turned to face her interviewer, and the world.” Or this intriguing opener from a Jeanie Senior story: Michael H. Walsh calls it it “teaching the elephant to dance.” “That’s his term for making the enormous, historic Union Pacific Railroad Co. competitive and profitable in the 20th century. (5/28/89, D1)
3. Topic Leads:
More than 40 environmentalists and developers debated before the Portland City Council on Wednesday on the future of wetlands areas in the Columbia South Shore area. (3/9/89, B4)
BOARDMAN — The prospect of tripling this town’s population with a 3,000-inmate prison was the subject of a hot debate Tuesday. (9/27/89, B1)
Orwell notwithstanding, topic leads probably should be banned. The point of a news story is to tell us what happened, what the outcome was. In the case of a meeting story, the important thing is not that the meeting took place, but the consequence of the meeting. What was the key decision? Why is that important? Where do we go from here?
Topic headings, in other words, should be restricted to information. It’s hard to imagine that they can ever be an appropriate way to introduce news

So what is literary journalism? A Q-A with Jon Franklin

A generation ago, writers such as Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson wowed a lot of us with the so-called “New Journalism,” applying the techniques of fiction writing to the demanding discipline of reporting.

Probably no one did more to bring this type of writing to newspapers than two-time Pulitzer winner Jon Franklin, who won the first Pulitzer Prize for feature writing with “Mrs.Kelly’s Monster” and his book “Writing For Story” has influenced an entire generation of narrative journalists.

Through several discussions with Jon and from observations made in “Writing for Story,” I pieced together this fictional conversation between an aspiring narrative journalist and one of the masters of the form. You should note that many of Franklin’s responses are paraphrased.

What is literary  journalism? ¶
Some people also call it creative nonfiction, but I don’t like that term, because it implies that writers can make things up that ought to have happened. I prefer narrative nonfiction or literary journalism. But whatever you call it, you combine the writing techniques of fiction with the fact-gathering techniques of journalism to tell a story. ¶

We tell stories every day. What’s different about literary journalism?
In truth, all stories are part of a narrative. Hard-news stories on an unfolding trial or election are paragraphs in the greater narrative. But when writing the true narrative or literary journalism, you don’t tell the reader what happens until the end. The story begins with a complication that needs to be resolved, then takes the reader on a journey to the resolution of that complication. Narratives usually are told without attribution, although sometimes that attribution is included in a separate box. ¶

So how do I find a story that will make a good narrative? ¶
The temptation is to jump on a story because someone promises you unlimited access. The reporter and editors say, “Wow. We’ve never had access like that before. Let’s tell the story” — usually over several days with lots of pictures. But just go to any hospital, and you can find dozens of these stories and, if you ask, you can probably get access. I look for a clean story — with a limited number of elements. I want to make sure I know who the main characters are. I don’t like the main character to be someone who has a nonstandard life. I want a unified experience for the reader. Above all, there are two things to avoid: Confusion and boredom. Readers get enough of both in their lives. ¶

How do you define a clean story? ¶
It’s kind of a batting average. Given all the variables, where is this probably going to go? Do I see the components of a story? The main characters? The complication? Is there a fallback structure? ¶

But what if the story doesn’t go in the direction you predicted? ¶
That’s just your default position. If you’re lucky, you’re wrong and you will find something better. That happened to me last year and after all these years, it still scared the living hell out of me. When I started I had a medical story about a woman in a coma. I woke up at 2 in the morning and realized it was a love story about her and her husband. Still, I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to change directions. Most of my reporting was already done. Then my wife told me, “How long have you been telling others that the story can change?” She convinced me. ¶

So what did you do? ¶
I did some more reporting. I went back to the relatives and asked, “This is a love story, isn’t it?” And they said, “Of course it is.” From that point on, it was easy. ¶

OK. I’ve picked a clean story. How do I persuade my editors to give me time to work on it when I’ve got a beat to cover, too? ¶
None of us started out doing narratives full time. We all had to work them in around other assignments. And you don’t have to start with something that takes months and months. “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster” happened over three or four days. Any good feature writer can get that kind of time. ¶

Many narrative writers advocate becoming a fly on the wall in reporting these stories. Does that mean we write only what we see?
The fly on the wall is only a technique to make your subjects feel comfortable. That’s all it is. You still have to get into the heads of your characters. And you do that by interviewing them, by reporting. ¶

So you don’t have to follow your story 24/7 to write a narrative? ¶
No, in fact, I prefer a retrospective approach over the perspective approach. ¶

What’s the difference? ¶
In a perspective, you write what you see as it happens. The danger is that the story changes on you and you won’t know it. A Tom Hallman or a Tom French can write with perspective because they’re experienced enough to recognize the change. But in a retrospective approach, you wait until the story is over and you’re sure what the story is. ¶

By retrospective, do you mean you re-create scenes, dialogue, etc.? ¶
Yes. This seems to bother some journalists, but I think they just don’t know the rules or the amazing accuracy with which this can be done. Readers don’t mind. They like it. And in truth, journalists do this every day. Rarely do we witness the murder, the bank robbery, etc. Writing in the retrospective is much the same thing. We re-create scenes; we don’t attribute every detail, but we’ve done the same reporting.

But it is important to remember that writing in the retrospective is not a license to steal. There are rules, and they are strict. ¶

So after I spent weeks or months filling my notebook with observations and microcassette tapes with interviews, what do I do with all this stuff? ¶
Start getting rid of it. ¶

But I’ve got so much great material!!! ¶
You’re going to find you collect dozens and dozens of great stories — stories you’d probably put in the newspaper under normal circumstances. You have to throw out everything that doesn’t contribute to the main theme of the story — everything that doesn’t take you directly from the complication to the resolution. ¶

What about all these great quotes I’ve collected?
Quotes have become a security blanket for writers. When you’re hiding behind them, you’re letting quotes substitute for reporting. You try to let quotes tell the story instead of doing it yourself. Quotes don’t move a story along. They don’t have action. They’re all words. I like for a narrative to be at least 60 percent action. And so often the quotes are chosen because that’s when the reporter was there. We worked hard for that quote, so we’re going to get it in there. That’s what I call a notebook dump. The only quotes that belong in a narrative are those that are part of a dialogue that move the story along. ¶

So what’s my lead? ¶
I often don’t even write my lead until I find the point of insight. ¶

The point of what? ¶
The point of insight is that moment in the story when all the parts are in place for the finish. It “feels” like we understand now. It usually comes at the last or the next-to-the-last piece in a series, though in a single story it’s almost always near the end, setting up the resolution. It’s the most dramatically germane part of the piece and, as a practical matter, the part the writer usually arrives at first. Essentially, in the narrative, the point of insight is the equivalent of the nut graf in a more traditional newspaper story. It’s the graf that tells you what the story is really about. In “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster,” the point of insight is the moment the doctor realizes the operation is going to fail.

So how does the point of insight relate to the lead? ¶
When I have the point of insight, I know whose story it is and where it’s going to go. Then I construct my lead to make it fit to that.

 Some writers begin narratives in media res — at a critical turning point in the story. Others begin at the beginning. Do you have a preference?
I usually try to begin a story in the middle of telling action. David is picking out the stone to hurl at Goliath, or whatever. Then I flash back to the beginning and how the hero got into this pickle.

What are some other characteristics of a good narrative lead?
You make promises in a lead. Then you have to live up to them. “Erin’s Race” makes the promise that this is going to be a race. But it isn’t. A narrative needs an overarching metaphor, but you can’t force a metaphor on the story. It’s got to happen naturally. ¶

What verb tense do you prefer for the story? ¶
Writers need to realize that story present can exist in past tense. I don’t like present tense for longer stories, especially those told over more than one day. Present tense is too limiting. In present tense, the story has to move at a breathless pace, but in a more reflective story it’s like playing a symphony in three-quarter time. ¶

I met so many people during the reporting. How do I choose my main characters? ¶
In literature, the character with the most courage is your main character. In journalism, it’s the character at the center of the action. Your job is to figure out whose story this is. As a general rule, all the main characters need to enter the story before the end of the first chapter or first day of a series. And you have to develop those characters through your reporting. We need to see them do things that denote intimacy, happiness, etc. When a main character makes a decision, the reader needs to understand why. ¶

Much of what I’ve witnessed during my reporting has been pretty boring. How do I keep my readers interested? ¶
We often think life is boring because we’re afraid to engage in it, and those pieces aren’t boring at all if you look at the dramas being played out. For instance, if you’re writing a medical story, yes, the patient is often bored to death. But I can guarantee you it’s not boring for the doctor who’s trying to save a life. So get inside the doctor’s head. ¶

What other advice do you have for the writing? ¶
Build scenes by showing, not telling. In one story there is a line, “Erin’s mood visibly lifts.” That’s telling. Show me her mood lifting — a smile, a bounce in her step, etc. ¶

So I’ve written 6,000 words. What’s next? ¶
You’ve got a rough draft. You begin rewriting. And re-reporting. ¶

More reporting? Are you kidding? I’ve been reporting this thing for six months.
Right, at this point, you can’t imagine why you started this project and you can’t imagine how you’re going to get through it. It’s painful. But you’re just getting to the fun part. Now you should know what the story is. You’ll probably throw out half of what you’ve written and then go back and improve on the best parts. That means more reporting to flesh out the story. The longer I’m in this business, the more I realize that it’s the reporting that makes these stories work. The writing is almost secondary. ¶

Tell me again why I started this in the first place.
When you get it right, when you ring the bell, the readers walk away touched and changed in some way. You’ve incorporated your story into their life’s experiences. ¶

Syllabus for ENG 306

SYLLABUS
CREATIVE NONFICTION – Literary journalism
ENG 306 Fall 2009
WEDNESDAYS 4 p.m.-6:30 GUILFORD 323
Lecturer: Stuart Warner

 Office hours: Guilford 316
Mondays & Wednesdays, 1-3 p.m.
and by appointment
E-Mail: warnercorn@msn.com
Web page: thewritecoachonline.com

blog: www. thewritecoach.wordpress.com

office phone: 216-368-2371

COURSE OUTLINE

This is a course for serious nonfiction writers. Literary journalism combines the writing techniques of fiction with the rigorous demands of accuracy in journalism. I’m leery of the term creative nonfiction because that seems to imply that writers can be creative with the facts. Not in this class. Reporting is the backbone of all good writing and you will be expected to report your stories with the same attention to detail as any newspaper journalist. Fine writing is expected, but you will also be expected to understand the techniques that make this writing resonate with readers. This class will focus on the disciplines of literary journalism that has produced award-winning series at The Plain Dealer such as The Burden of Innocence, Beyond Rape, The Inheritance, Johanna: Facing Forward and Bernard’s Story as well as such nationally reknown stories as Seabiscuit, The Soloist and Mrs. Kelly’s Monster. But we will also review narratives produced by college students while they were working as interns with me. The class will be directed to help you produce a 3,000-word narrative that would be worthy of publication. I am confident that working together we can do that.
 

READINGS (PARTIAL LIST)

Elements of Style, Strunk and White (recommended but not required)
Writing for Story, Jon Franklin
Seabiscuit: An American Legend, Laura Hillenbrand
The Soloist, Steve Lopez
Other assigned readings provided by instructor

GRADING
Grades will generally be based on the following scale
Final paper (3,000 words) – 35 percent
Other assigned writings – 25 percent
Mid-term exam on narrative terms – 25 percent
Class participation – 10 percent
Journals – 5 percent

RULES OF THE CLASS

Deadlines cannot be compromised. Assignments turned in late without a doctor’s excuse will not be accepted. Students will be held to professional standards with regard to spelling and factual errors, both of which will result in grade reductions. Students will also be expected to adhere to the grammatical rules outlined in Elements of Style. Plagiarism, fabrication or any other egregious ethical breach of professional standards shall be dealt with most severely.

 

SCHOOL POLICY ON ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

All forms of academic dishonesty including cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation, and obstruction are violations of academic integrity standards. Cheating includes copying from another’s work, falsifying problem solutions or laboratory reports, or using unauthorized sources, notes or computer programs. Plagiarism includes the presentation, without proper attribution, of another’s words or ideas from printed or electronic sources. It is also plagiarism to submit, without the instructor’s consent, an assignment in one class previously submitted in another. Misrepresentation includes forgery of official academic documents, the presentation of altered or falsified documents or testimony to a university office or official, taking an exam for another student, or lying about personal circumstances to postpone tests or assignments. Obstruction occurs when a student engages in unreasonable conduct that interferes with another’s ability to conduct scholarly activity. Destroying a student’s computer file, stealing a student’s notebook, and stealing a book on reserve in the library are examples of obstruction.

 

OVERVIEW
This is a rough outline of the topics will be covered and subject to change. Individual reading assignments will be updated weekly . And once again, there will be a current events or reading quiz at every class.

Week 1 – Introduction: What is literary journalism and opening the writer’s vein.
Week 2 – Narrative by the numbers – the terminology of literary journalism. .
Week 3 – The reported essay. Discussion with Pulitzer winning columnist Connie Schultz (Subject to speaker’s availability..
Week 4 – Seminars on writing that I give to professional writers: Be Your Own Coach and The Writing Process (focusing on Bernard’s Story). .
Week 5 – First writing assignment due; read aloud. Discussion of story present and back story (Frank Sinatra Has a Cold).
Week 6 – Analyzing the Narrative: Mrs. Kelly’s Monster. Organization..
Week 7 – Scene construction; getting inside characters head, dialogue vs. quotes. Assignment due on reporting a scene. Review of terms.
Week 8 – Test on applying narrative terms. Discussion of topics for final paper..
Weej 9. Reporting the narrative. Discussion of Seabiscuit
Week 10 – More reporting the narrative … Beyond Rape. (pending speaker availability). Outlines due for final paper.
Week 11 – The Personal Story. The Soloist. Getting into a character’s head..
Week 12 – The finer points; point of insight, foreshadowing, reconstruction.
Week 13 – Reporting and writing time for final papers
Week 14 – Schedule office time to review draft of final papers. Draft must be completed.
Week 15 – Revising time
Week 16 – Final papers due.

Syllabus for ENG 204

INTRODUCTION TO JOURNALISM
ENG 204 Fall 2009
MONDAYS 4 p.m.-6:30 GUILFORD 323
Lecturer: Stuart Warner

 Office hours: Guilford 318
Mondays & Wednesdays, 1-3 p.m.
and by appointment

E-Mail: warnercorn@msn.com

Web page: www.thewritecoachonline.com

office phone:  216-368-2371

 

COURSE OUTLINE

Journalism is changing as rapidly as I write this syllabus. A newspaper closes. A hundred new bloggers began reporting the news. This course will not focus on the traditional platforms of presenting the news, i.e., newspapers, radio, TV, magazines. Instead, the focus will be on journalism, why what it was and what it might be. The goal of the class to to help students begin developing tools that journalists will need — good reporting and writing, objectivity, ethics – no matter what the medium. The heaviest emphasis will be on writing skills. Maybe more importantly, by the end of the semesters, students should become better-informed consumers of news. To that end, students will be quizzed every class either on current events or on reading assignments. Students who miss class without a doctor’s excuse must arrange for make-up quizzes. More than two unexcused absences will result in a lowered grade. Class participation will also factor heavily in grades. Journalists, whatever medium, must be curious and learn to ask direct questions.

READINGS (PARTIAL LIST)
 

Elements of Style, Strunk and White
Journalism: Who What When Where Why and How, James Stovall
A Writer’s Coach, Jack Hart
Sunday New York Times (subscription or online)
Other assigned readings

GRADING
Grades will generally be based on the following scale
Final story (1,500 words) – 25 percent
Other assigned writings – 35 percent
Quizzes – 20 percent
Elements of Style test – 10 percent
Class participation – 10 percent

RULES OF THE CLASS
Deadlines cannot be compromised. Assignments turned in late without a doctor’s excuse will not be accepted. Students will be held to professional standards with regard to spelling and factual errors, both of which will result in grade reductions. Students will also be expected to adhere to the grammatical rules outlined in Elements of Style. Plagiarism, fabrication or any other egregious ethical breach of professional standards shall be dealt with most severely.

SCHOOL POLICY ON ACADEMIC DISHONESTY
All forms of academic dishonesty including cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation, and obstruction are violations of academic integrity standards. Cheating includes copying from another’s work, falsifying problem solutions or laboratory reports, or using unauthorized sources, notes or computer programs. Plagiarism includes the presentation, without proper attribution, of another’s words or ideas from printed or electronic sources. It is also plagiarism to submit, without the instructor’s consent, an assignment in one class previously submitted in another. Misrepresentation includes forgery of official academic documents, the presentation of altered or falsified documents or testimony to a university office or official, taking an exam for another student, or lying about personal circumstances to postpone tests or assignments. Obstruction occurs when a student engages in unreasonable conduct that interferes with another’s ability to conduct scholarly activity. Destroying a student’s computer file, stealing a student’s notebook, and stealing a book on reserve in the library are examples of obstruction.

OVERVIEW
This is a rough outline of the topics will be covered and subject to change. We may take a trip to a traditional and non-traditional news rooms, based on availability. Individual reading assignments will be updated weekly . And once again, there will be a current events or reading quiz at every class. Unannounced quizzes on reading assignments will also be given.

Week 1 – Introduction: Does journalism matter anymore?
Week 2 – The day we were all news consumers: Discussion with reporter who got inside the police barriers at 9-11 plus discussion of first three chapters of Stovall.
Week 3 – (after holiday) The history of journalism. How we got here.
Week 4 – Two case studies (subject to availability of speaker). First writing assignment due.
Week 5 – Test on Elements of Style; Discussion of Ethics and Standards
Week 6 – Begin discussion of Jack Hart’s book: A Writer’s Coach;
Week 7 — Reporting/Interviewing
Week 7 – Organizing/Finding Focus; Deadline writing test
Week 8 – (after fall break) Writing the draft: seminar on writing the lead
Week 9 – Twitter writing assignment due; Polishing: 10 steps to being your own coach
Week 10 – Tentative … visiting news rooms new and old
Week 11 — New directions: How will the news be presented. Outline for final paper due.
Week 12 – Opinion writing, blog writing, guest speakers
Week 13 – Drafts of final paper due … will schedule individual review sessions
Week 14 – Final papers due

Syllabus: ENG 309

                                                SYLLABUS

WRITING FOR NEW MEDIA

ENG 309; Spring 2010

M-W-F  2 p.m.-2:50  GUILFORD 317

Lecturer:  Stuart Warner                                                      Office hours:  Guilford 318

                                                                                                Wednesdays, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m.

                                                                                                and by appointment               

E-Mail:  warnercorn@msn.com                                                                                                   Web page: www.thewritecoachonline.com

Blog: www.thewritecoach.wordpress.com

 

COURSE OUTLINE

            Journalism is changing as rapidly as I write this syllabus.  A newspaper closes.  A hundred new bloggers began reporting the news.  This course will not focus on the traditional platforms of presenting the news, i.e., newspapers, radio, TV, magazines.  Instead, the focus will be on writing for new media – and maybe even creating some of our own. The  emphasis will be experimentation.  Every student will be required to keep a blog and to report on an even using Twitter.  We will also try to create a class Facebook page on writing for new media.  We will also study Search Engine Optimization.   Through it all, though, we will continue to emphasize what is good journalism, including libel and ethics. Each student’s blog will be covering a specific area of campus life.  Fridays will be devoted to reporting on that beat.  Students who miss class without a doctor’s excuse must arrange for make-up quizzes.  More than two unexcused absences  will result in a lowered grade.   Class participation will also factor heavily in grades.  Journalists, whatever medium, must be curious and learn to ask direct questions.  Quizzes may be given on the reading material at any time without notice.

READINGS (PARTIAL LIST)

Elements of Journalism, Kovach and Rosenstiel

Journalism Next, Mark Briggs

Elements of Style, Strunk and White (recommended by not required)

Other assigned readings

GRADING

Grades will generally be based on the following scale

Final project– 25 percent

Mid-term  – 20  percent

Blogs – 20 percent

Twitter assignments – 15

Quizzes – 10 percent

Class participation – 10 percent

                                                RULES OF THE CLASS

Deadlines cannot be compromised.  Assignments turned in late without a doctor’s excuse will not be accepted.  Students will be held to professional standards with regard to spelling and factual errors, both of which will result in grade reductions.  Students will also be expected to adhere to the grammatical rules outlined in Elements of Style. Plagiarism, fabrication or any other egregious ethical breach of professional standards shall be dealt with most severely.

                                    SCHOOL POLICY ON ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

All forms of academic dishonesty including cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation, and obstruction are violations of academic integrity standards. Cheating includes copying from another’s work, falsifying problem solutions or laboratory reports, or using unauthorized sources, notes or computer programs. Plagiarism includes the presentation, without proper attribution, of another’s words or ideas from printed or electronic sources. It is also plagiarism to submit, without the instructor’s consent, an assignment in one class previously submitted in another. Misrepresentation includes forgery of official academic documents, the presentation of altered or falsified documents or testimony to a university office or official, taking an exam for another student, or lying about personal circumstances to postpone tests or assignments. Obstruction occurs when a student engages in unreasonable conduct that interferes with another’s ability to conduct scholarly activity. Destroying a student’s computer file, stealing a student’s notebook, and stealing a book on reserve in the library are examples of obstruction.

OVERVIEW

This is a rough outline of the topics will be covered and subject to change.  We may take a trip to a non-traditional news rooms, based on availability.  Individual reading assignments will be updated  weekly .   And Unannounced quizzes on reading assignments will also be given.

Week 1 – Introduction: Does journalism matter anymore? (No class Friday, Jan. 15)

Week 2 – What is good writing.  (No class Mon., Jan. 18)

Week 3 – More on writing style, developing an online attitude.

Week 4 – Getting started on your blog, Facebook page.

Week 5 – How to blog covering a beat (guest speakers)

Week 6 – Microblogging (Twitter, et al)

Week 7 – Discussion of Elements of Journalism

Week 8 – Mid-term exam on Elements of Journalism (3 essay questions, in class)

Week  9 –  (after spring break) Search Engine Optimization

Week 10 –  Using video, audio, etc   (Twitter project due)

Week 11 – Going Mobile

Week 12 – Social networking … how can we use it more.

Week 13 – Drafts of final paper due … will schedule individual review sessions

Week 14 – Polishing final papers, blogs completed

Week 15 – Final papers due