The requirement is five published stories — one each in News, Life, Sports, Outdoors, and Arts. Each section wants something different from you, and each has its own student editor who will tell you so.
Published Stories — 5 at 60 points each, 300 pointsNews (500–800 words). Campus decisions, budgets, policy, SUUSA senate, Board of Trustees, city council, faculty senate, crime and safety, enrollment, tuition, construction. Inverted pyramid. Attribution on every claim. At least three sources, including someone authorized to speak for the institution.Life (700–1,000 words). Profiles, campus culture, clubs, food, housing, mental health, traditions, the corner of campus nobody covers. A real interview with a real person, at length. Narrative structure, a feature lead, and enough restraint that you do not get in the way of the subject.Sports (500–800 words). T-Bird game coverage, athlete features, coaching and program stories, conference context, club and intramural sports. Numbers handled correctly in AP style. Quotes gathered after the event, not lifted from a press release. A reason to care beyond the score.Outdoors (600–900 words). Trails, canyons, parks, seasons, gear, snow and water conditions, access and permits. First-hand reporting — you went, or you talked at length to people who did. Service value: a reader should be able to act on it.Arts (600–900 words). Reviews and previews of campus productions, concerts, galleries, readings, student work, and Utah Shakespeare Festival shows. Judgment supported by evidence from the work itself. A review is an argument, not a summary and not a rating. Describe before you evaluate.
Pitches — 5 at 10 points each, 50 points. A written pitch at the start of each cycle, to your section editor and to me: what the story is, why now, who you will talk to, and what you expect to find. A pitch that cannot name three sources is not a pitch. Pitch and publication dates are set with your editor and recorded on the story log, because a fixed calendar cannot know when a play opens or a game is scheduled. A killed pitch still earns credit if it was serious. No pitch earns nothing.
Newsroom Participation, Revision and Response to Edits — 75 points. Participation in class discussions, in-class activities or assignments, meeting with editors, meeting deadlines and communication (responding and communicating) This is a lab course, and the lab is the newsroom. How completely and how quickly you answer an editor’s questions and return changes. Ignoring an edit request is the fastest way to lose points in this course.
Portfolio and Reflection — 75 points. A clip file with all five published URLs, plus a 750-word reflection: what you learned about reporting, which story was hardest and why, and what you would do differently. This is the document you adapt for job applications. Detailed requirements will be provided by mid-semester.
Total: 500 points. 90–100% = A · 80–89% = B · 70–79% = C · 60–69% = D · below 60% = F
How publication affects your grade. You are graded on filing a publishable story on deadline — not on whether the editor runs it. Editors kill stories for reasons that have nothing to do with the reporter: space, timing, a source withdraws, an event is cancelled, another reporter has the same piece. If you file something clean, sourced, and on time and it does not run, you receive full credit and we find it another home. What you are graded on is whether it is accurate, whether it is sourced, whether it is in AP style, whether it is in the section’s voice, and whether it was on time.
The story log. Your editors and I share a tracking document with a row for each of your five stories: pitch date and topic, who accepted it, the deadline you were given, when your draft came in, how much editing it needed, and when it published. You can ask to see your own row at any time. It exists so that a story going sideways gets caught in week two rather than week twelve.
Standards that are not negotiable. It has to be true — no fabricated quotes, sources, or details, ever; this ends your participation in the publication and triggers the academic integrity process. It has to be yours — no plagiarism, and no rewriting another outlet’s story. You have to be able to show your work — keep notes, recordings, emails, and contact information for every source until the semester ends; if a story is challenged, that file is what protects you and the publication. Corrections are not optional — if you get something wrong, say so immediately. Disclose conflicts — you do not cover your own club, your roommate’s campaign, or a team you play for.
Artificial intelligence. This course is stricter than the department’s default because everything you write here is published. See the full policy under Additional Course Policies below. The short version: AI may not write, draft, or “clean up” a story that will carry your byline.