Homework: Blog backgrounder

Pending any last-minute changes, our four blog topics will be: 1) Iraq and the Middle East; 2) The federal and California elections; 3) Religious Conflicts in Society; and 4)Homeland Security and Civil Rights.

My hope is that those four topics are big enough to provide you with a lot of stories to read, analyze and blog about, AND a lot of ideas to "localize" for your final story projects.

Your homework (Assignment No. 2 on the syllabus) is to research the background on your blog topic and write about two pages -- double spaced! -- on the subject.

Write it as you would a news story:

-- Summarize the big picture in the lede, and then expand on that in the grafs that follow.
-- Attribute what you find and report: "Iraq blah blah," President George W. Bush said in the Los Angeles Times. Or, "Congressional elections la di da," reported the Washington Post.
-- Use Nexis-Lexis or Pro-Quest through the CSULB library for articles. Use major metropolitan newspapers for the most part -- you will find more original reporting and stories that are deeper in content. Avoid unbylined Associated Press (AP) stories -- in many cases, they're just shorter rewrites of what the big papers have done.
-- You can also use the Web sites of the bigger newspapers (Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, etc.)though they are harder to use for older articles -- that's where the databases are invaluable.
-- Keep your information current. Only go back about a month or so in your research.
-- Use at least three or four different source publications.

If you have any questions, post a comment on the blog here, or e-mail me.