module specification

Newsroom Production: Holloway Express works in tandem with  Newsroom Production: Employability. Students will work in teams in the newsroom to produce multi-platform journalism consistent with industry practice, based on editorial roles for which they have already applied. This module is core for Journalism and Fashion Marketing and Journalism students.

You will work within your editorial role throughout the year and will learn to make multimedia to accompany a minimum of six articles, both news and features, which you will have published online on our forward-facing hyperlocal website, Holloway Express. Each article will include a plethora of multimedia, including infographics, videos, podcasts and more. You will learn about data journalism and also more about writing news and features.

Working within tight deadlines and adhering to professional codes and standards, you will write and edit copy and scripts, headlines and picture captions and learn how to use words, images, graphics, audio and social media to construct narratives appropriate to the story and platform.

You will also develop competencies in the use of audio and video recording and editing, making particular use of smartphones, and learn how to draw traffic to their work by means of social media.

In order to perform these tasks, you will take on a number of roles specified in published job descriptions, to which you have already applied in the previous semester. You will learn to work well within a group and see first-hand how editorial teams work.

Successful completion of this module will involve a pitch to potential employers of a journalistic idea you have developed over the course of the module, as well as 1,200-word article with a minimum of four multimedia elements and hyperlinks on a story of interest to people in the local area. You will also get formative feedback on a number of articles you will have published to Holloway Express, and make mention of them in your Production Journal.
  
Assessment will involve the pitch and the piece of longform journalism complete with multimedia. Contribution to news days will be both self-assessed and moderated by tutors, in which you will need to talk about the minimum of six stories you had published and assess how you carried out the responsibilities your individual editorial role entails.

Teaching sessions will take place in the multimedia newsroom and include explicit instruction about roles and responsibilities in a modern newsroom, the challenge of working in teams, user generated content and social media in journalism, multimedia storytelling, the power of images and graphics, principles of copy editing, fact-checking, balance and the right of reply, how to write headlines and captions online.  LO1,2,4

Newsdays will allow a virtual professional environment to foster team-building and employability, developing social as well as writing skills. These will also involve some recording and editing of audio and video material, using smartphones. LO1,2,4

Students will also learn how to write competent news and feature stories, which they post on the hyperlocal website Holloway Express. This will involve knowing about a local audience and successfully originating and sourcing ideas, then doing interviews and multimedia to make well-rounded, interesting articles to post both on the site and their portfolio websites, to increase their employability. LO1, 2, 3, 4

If students read all the required texts, participate in all the class activities and complete the required assessments and assignments, they should be able to:

1. Work in teams producing journalism which fits market criteria;

2. Make flexible contributions to discussion, writing and production within the newsroom and news days;

3. Analyse their own personal strengths and weaknesses in employment contexts, develop strategies and explore opportunities to work in the industry;

4. Create a range of multimedia elements to be showcased in an online format.

https://rl.talis.com/3/londonmet/lists/245BA110-21BF-E58C-C351-19C633059466.html?lang=en&login=1