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Introduction to Journalistic Writing

ENGL 157.301
instructor(s):
M 2-5
Benn 224

As a career journalist, I tell people who ask that my job is like going to school and getting paid for it. Journalists survive on the desire to have a "Jeopardy!" knowledge of life, a little bit about virtually everything. Your curiosity is the only pre-requisite for the class, which is designed to help you learn how to gather those "Jeopardy!" answers and express them in stories. The cliché is that journalism is the first draft of history and, while with most clichés, there is some truth in it, a better definition may be that it is the quickest draft of potential history. I won't promise to make you Hunter Thompson or Thomas Friedman or Maureen Dowd or even the best writer on 34th Street in a semester, but I do promise you that you will have plenty of opportunities to report, write and opine over the weeks we are together. Best to take this course with an open mind, a desire and willingness to see things from all angles. Email me if you need more description at rsstrauss@comcast.net

fulfills requirements
Elective Seminar of the Standard Major
Creative Writing Seminar Requirement of the Creative Writing Track