The best news organizations pull together like teams.
For this week’s discussion:
–What do you hope to get out of this course?
–Have you ever been published? Worked on a school newspaper? Kept a journal? Or written fiction?
Click on the Staff Meeting title to open the full post. Then share your goals for this course using the “Reply” button found below previous D1 comments.
Hello everyone, my name is Deshawn Kelly. I am from Seattle Washington born and raised. My major is communications and my minor is sports marketing. I have chosen this major because the original major I wanted to study was Interior Design but UAF does not have that major. I am very excited to take this class and learn about how to write articles and learn more about news and media. My goals for the class are to learn how to write for the news, also receiving a B or higher in this class. Being in this class will really help me become a better writer and I plan on doing that throughout this course.
Hi! Sorry I’m getting to this so late, I enrolled into this class on the day of the deadline for adding/dropping…Oops. My name is Aurora and I’m a sophomore at UAF. I just switched my major to Communications with a minor in Psychology. I’m originally from California but moved to Fairbanks last year. I don’t have much experience writing, except for in elementary school when I ran the school newspaper! I’ve never fully been able to commit to keeping a journal except for when traveling. By taking this class, I hope to gain the knowledge and tools I need to become a better storyteller with my writing!
Hi everyone! My name is Maximillian Treece-Noran, I am a Junior at UAF majoring in Film and Performing Arts. I am looking forward to further improving my skills in writing and become a more well-rounded writer as a whole. Except for a few research papers most off my experience is writing fiction. While I have never been published I have written short stories as well as a few scripts that have been made into a films.
Hello everyone, my name is Koby Huerta and am from Seattle Washington. My major is communications and my minor is early childhood education. I am excited to take this class and learn about how to write articles and things along those lines.
My goals for the class are to learn how to write for the news, and am very excited to learn how to write strong articles. I want to become a better writer throughout this course too.
Hello Koby,
I am also pretty excited to learn how to write news articles as well. I am also a communications major so I can relate in that area as well. Throughout my academic career I have been told that I am a great writer, hopefully I can put that to use with this class.
Hi everyone. My name is LaToya this is my first semester here at UAF. I’m majoring in Digital Journalism with a minor in Business. I’m excited to learn news writing styles and ways to write captivating stories. I worked on my high school newspaper, writing stories on sports and entertainment, I also journal often. I look forward to working with everyone. Happy semester.
Hi everyone! My name is Keshaun and I am currently a Communications major along with a minor in Sport Management. This actually only my second semester at UAF so I plan making it a pretty cool experience as best as I can. While attending this class, I plan on gaining knowledge about how different news and media platforms are used effectively on a consistent level. I have been published multiple times in newspapers throughout my basketball career and its pretty exciting to see someone actually put your name and picture somewhere that the whole city can see. Hopefully, I can learning a few new skills from taking this class. Good luck to everyone this semester!
Hi Keshaun, that’s very cool you’ve been published in newspapers before. Looking forward to learning alongside you and everyone else this semester!
When we get to interviewing Keshaun, it will be great hearing what it’s like being on the other side of pesky questions.
Hi! This is Zosha Krupa. I’m from Sitka, Alaska and my major is Communications with a minor in Fisheries. I’ve completed five semesters so far, but only one at UAF. I transferred here in the fall, from North Idaho College, in Coeur d’Alene, ID. So far, I love Fairbanks! The cold is far more extreme than I’m used to, because Sitka doesn’t usually get temperatures colder than 30 degrees. Also, it rarely snows in Sitka. Our little sits on the outer edge of the Southeast chain of islands, which is considered a rainforest. Anyway, enough about that. As far as this class goes, this is my first time taking a news writing course, so I have no idea what to expect! As a matter of fact, other than the usual required English courses, the only other writing experience I’ve had was from the Creative Writing class I took in high school. So, needless to say, I don’t have much of a background in writing. I’ve done a small amount of journaling, but most of my journal entries are drawings. I love to draw : ) I’m really hoping to learn how to say a lot with very few words. I love a good news article that captures my attention and keeps my interest by getting to the point. That way, if I want to know more, I can do a little digging, and if I don’t, I can move on to the next story!
Hi Zosha, nice to meet you! This is my first winter here, I moved from Florida, so to say the least this winter has definitely been interesting :). I also hope to learn to say a lot in few words, while being interesting. Have a great semester!
It’s easy to grab the reader’s attention long enough to impart breaking news. Organizing feature stories in a manner that keeps the reader going without effort, paragraph by paragraph, ideally reaching a memorable ending, that’s our mission.
Hey Zosha,
I am also a communications major so I can relate when it comes to that area. This too is my first year here at UAF so I am also experience things in Alaska for the first time as well. I hope you have a great semester!
Hey Zosha,
Here again you come across another communications major. This is also my first year here at UAF, I have and I still am experiencing things around Alaska. Not just Fairbanks other little towns in Alaska as well. I hope you finish the semester strong and finish with the grade you wanted to receive in this class
Hi Everyone,
I’m Tiffany and I am Majoring in film and theater production with a concentration in film and a minor in journalism. I just completed an AAS in paralegal studies here at UAF and have decided to go to law school in middle age. Since I need to complete my bachelors to do that, I decided to just go ahead and get that degree in something I’ve always wanted — film ((school). I’m excited to learn the nuts and bolts of crafting a captivating news story!
Nuts and bolts? Guaranteed. Captivating? That depends a lot on the reader’s interests. What I will stress is identifying the news in a set of facts, along with strategies for catching attention with a good lead, then presenting details in a logical, readily digestible story.
Excellent, professor O’D. I’m excited to learn the craft from you– an actual award-winning journalist!
Hello,
I’m Emma, my major is English, and my minors are creative writing and WGS. I don’t have a lot of experience writing for the news but I prefer writing nonfiction in my creative writing courses though I am taking a course in fiction this semester. I have had one short story published so far and am looking forward to gaining skills in another form of writing.
Wow congrats on being published! I’m taking my first WGS class this semester and I think it’s super necessary to be educated on the topics covered in that class for proper representation of minority groups in the media!
(I see now there is no “edit” button here. Please excuse my above typos. I will be more careful in the future before I post my comment!)
Hi Tiffany, nice to meet you! I’m also excited to learn about crafting a captivating new story. Law school, that sound like fun! Good luck this semester!
Tiffany,
I think it is very cool that you’re majoring in film. there’s so many cool videos out there being made and film is a very exciting and interesting thing.
Payton,
That’s two of us majoring in Social Work in this class so far. Glad to see someone else from the Social Science world in a news writing class!
Sounds good. But you’ll need to shed the researcher’s caution with respect to sharing what you know so far. Be bold presenting what the facts support at that moment in our class news cycle. As events develop, update!
Hi all! My name is Melanie Sexton, and I’m a sophomore majoring in Communications with a minor in Outdoor Leadership. In this course, I’m actually excited to get some good feedback on my writing skills and learn more about how to concisely convey information. I’ve never really received good feedback on my writing skills in the past, so I think this class will be a good challenge for me! I didn’t do much writing for a team/organization, but in High school I was the yearbook editor. That was a fun job that I liked, specifically the team aspect.
Hi Melanie! Welcome to class!
Yearbooks hold lessons about the absolute importance of getting names straight, layout, graphics, headlines, captions and other points of entry into a story. Best of all, those yearbooks are keepers. I’m looking at a stack across from my desk that yielded murder clues a decade after publication.
Hi!
My name is Anna Lorence, and this is my first year at UAF. At the moment, I am majoring in Digital Journalism with a minor in French. So far in my life I haven’t done much news writing, but did help with the yearbook some in high school and I journal quite often. When I was younger I would write short books and “publish” them for my family. I am taking this course mainly because it is required for my major, but I definitely have a lot to learn about the writing world and want to expand my knowledge.
That all sounds like an excellent foundation to build on. See my comments to Melanie regarding yearbooks. Journals offer room to document experiences. One big difference here is news-writing is aimed at a broader audience of busy strangers. We’ll be looking at approaches to catch and hold their attention.
Hello All! My name is Zong Moua and I am a Film and Performing Arts Major with a concentration in Film. In high school, I was in our News Media class, but I was mainly tech and not actually a writer. I took this class because quite honestly I need it for my Minor. BUT I do hope to learn a little bit about journalism and how to tell stories from a different perspective. Most of my writing has been screenplays so I’m interested/excited to write something that is out of my norm.
Hi Zong! Film and Performing Arts sounds like a lot of fun! Where did you grow up? My high school was small and did not offer much, in terms of performing arts electives. I like your honesty! I’m also taking this class, even though I am not majoring in journalism. My major is in communications, so I have a feeling this class will be very beneficial for me. Enjoy the semester!
Screenplay writing is good training for developing an eye for detail. Biggest difference in scene-description for news stories is you can’t make things up.
If you cover anything regularly, you master the lingo without much effort. Every once in a while an assignment comes up in which you are more or less clueless, that’s when these specialized sStylebook sections come in handy. I often double checked if it’s Super Bowl, or Superbowl. (Now I see even spell check knows which one is proper.)
Hello, my name is Anna Hansen and I am a junior. I’m going to school here at UAF with my husband. I am majoring in communications and minoring in journalism. With that, I hope to learn the basics of news writing and what goes into it. I don’t want to be a professional by the end of the semester but have a better understanding of what leads up to a published article and the style of writing that is used. This class counts towards my degree and that’s why I’m taking it. I have not had anything published or been a part of writing for a school newspaper. I do like to free write when I’m bored or have things on my mind.
Hello,
My name is Corina McArthur. I am a Communications major with a minor in Spanish at UAF. I just recently changed my major and minor. I’ve got to say I am enjoying it already and have this craving to learn more. I am new to this major and so far, a lot of things are very interesting. I also need this class to count towards my degree, but no harm in having a little fun along the way. As far as writing goes, I currently have a journal that I write in every morning. In high school, which was a couple of years ago now, I helped with the yearbook. Other than that, I am looking forward to working with all of you.
Welcome Corina!
Hey!
I just had to say I double glanced at your name when I first saw it because we both have the name Anna, and Hansen is my mom’s maiden name. So Anna Hansen was a name I did not expect to come across.
When I first arrived in Alaska, recruited by the Frontiersman, there was an Anchorage food writer named Brian Donoghue! What are the odds? For a while, everyone I interviewed brought up recipes and restaurants and I had no idea what they were talking about. As my wife will tell you, I’m from the Man+Can=Plan survival school.
That’s really funny. I glanced at your name twice as well!
Sounds good, Amy! Prepare yourself for juicy police blotter items to write up. You’ll and others will find that truth is often more interesting/disgusting/twisted and/or bizare than anything made up.
My name is Jade Lutes, and I am studying Social Work with a minor in Digital Journalism. I’m a life-long reader(I love the written word) and writer(mostly journals and short stories) and my goals for this class are to get a basis for writing for the media. When I was growing up I was a teen reporter for our local paper and had a couple of articles printed, which was a thrill! This past summer, my family and I relocated from Dutch Harbor to Kodiak. While neither myself or my wife are originally Alaskans, we are here to stay and love living here!
Hello Jade!
My name is Kaitlin Peryea, I am also getting a minor in Digital Journalism but I am currently majoring in Film.
I am hoping to get a lot of writing knowledge out of this class so that I can get some of my stories published in local media.
I haven’t had much writing experience other than editing but I am very excited to learn more!
Local publication is not only possible. It’s worth extra credit! If you want to write for the News-Miner, for example, or whatever publication serves your area, become a regular reader. Jot down ideas for stories of interest to the outlet’s audience. It could be a change in local flight schedules, a shortage that’s driving up local prices, or a big game between rival highs schools. Pitch any editor a couple of story ideas suited to that publication and sooner or later you’ll have an assignment.
Better late then never!
After seeing that I am already behind, here is what I hope to learn in this class. At my job I am constantly having to communicate what we do! Working for a research institute and college here at UAF, I relate current events on the daily to local news agencies, fellow university groups, sponsoring agencies, and interested community members. I want to learn how to communicate effectively, spark interest and highlight the most important parts. I have produced and continue to work on annual reports, newsletters, highlight memos, project spotlights, presentations, website content and internal communications.
Welcome, Diane. Here’s the first habit to break writing for this institution: Don’t capitalize university unless it’s part of a full proper name! The University of Alaska, or the University of Alaska Anchorage, Fairbanks, Southeast yes. The University, never.
I’m excited to learn anything I can about News writing in the media. I in fact never really written any fiction or worked on a newspaper. I’ve been in the newspaper because I play basketball, but that’s about it. I’m always up to learn something new and just look forward to putting my best efforts to be successful.
Shadeed, being interviewed in the past yourself will give you a head start when the time comes to interview strangers. You likely also recognize the importance of getting facts straight. Meanwhile, start thinking about an event you might cover or scene you can describe from the road.
Hi everyone,
I’ve become known as grandma Cha-Cha. I am an older student on the back side of life. I enjoy smelling the roses per se, instead of trying to keep up with the Jones! Life is too short to try and capture all the adventures life has to offer, so why not write about them! My bucket list though includes a degree in Communications. Years ago when I was in high school, I worked on a dos program that would columnize the newspaper. I typed the paper, and had to do a few interviews when students didn’t get their assignment portion completed.
As years have traveled in my journey, I have had many opportunities to keep a journal about adventures and family. I am a private person with too much knowledge about security leaks and defamation that I keep social media at bay. I prefer not to share personal information online. It is too easily to capture data and be a pawn to a chess game on the web. I do find the web interesting as if it is a huge library waiting to be explored. I’ve blogged family sporting events, and created sports video’s for my son’s wrestling career. This dabbling effect of in the know and what people should know is a balancing act that is hard to keep balanced once postings are online. I’m taking this class as a core, but find media writing to be fun and entertaining. I hope to learn new ways of writing for a variety of subjects and media.