Assignment 2: Online "Capturing Cardiff" Feature - 70%

[matthew yeomans]

The second assignment is a piece on online journalism.

The DEADLINE is Friday, December 21st.

It should be 700-800 words long and it needs to be a piece of reporting/short feature writing. Pure opinion or criticism is not permitted.

The story should be written as an online magazine feature - incorporating a news angle with feature writing techniques.

The theme of the assignment is "Capturing Cardiff" and your story can cover the following beats:

• Politics
• Grassroots/Cultural issues
• Music
• Theatre & the Arts
• Sport
• Environmental issues

As the topic title suggests, your story has to be Cardiff-based (or South Wales at a push) and will be marked on the following criteria.

That it includes:

• In the field reporting
• Both a news hook and also feature writing
• Quality of grammar and punctuation
• Digital photos taken with a camera or mobile phone
• An audio "back story" recorded with a mobile phone
• Links to relevant websites

All students will have the opportunity to add another mobile video element to their multimedia online assignments but this video element will not be part of the final grade.

[Lynn Roberts]

Hi Matt,

What time is the deadline on the 21st?

[Pete Hayman]

I accept that the word limit is 700-800 but is there any leeway if we go over 800?

[matthew yeomans]

sure - go for the Gate.....don't worry too much about the news hook.

[Chris Goward]

Hi Matt,
I have decided I would like to do my Capturing Cardiff project on "the gate" as a whole instead of just covering the open mike nights which are held there. The Gate is an arts centre in Roath and it is ; do you know it? I was wondering about what to do for a news hook however. Would the fact that the Gate is struggling with popularity be enough of an angle?

[matthew yeomans]

Hi, the audio has to be separate.

[Ruth Mansfield]

Just wanted to check with the audio does this have to be a sound-only thing or if we film a person being interviewed can the sound on the video be counted as audio?

[Sarah Garrod]

yes, thank you!!

[matthew yeomans]

don't worry about it being too newsy - the point is to have something about the story that makes it relevant now. But we don't want it too time-tied as then it will sound stale later.....make any sense?

[Sarah Garrod]

could you tell me what you mean by a news hook? I want to get started on it now but the news angle i was working on will be irrelevant by the end of December?!
cheers, sarah

[matthew yeomans]

Am working out the best way to present them on Ning. However I'll also need the blog post and photos printed out and submitted as a hard copy to the department for official evaluation......stay tuned for more details!