JOUR 7040 - International News Lab

REVISED DEADLINE: NOW APRIL 14, 2009

Continue thinking about your final project.

The theme this year is the impact of the financial crisis in Hong Kong. You will need to come up with a topic. For example: charities. Are they seeing donations fall? Education: are people extending/cutting short their education?

You will base it around the Hong Kong 2009-10 budget delivered on Feb 24.

Angles to consider:

• what measures did the Financial Secretary invoke to help those in financial trouble?
• What do those who are supposed to benefit think of them?
• What do those who did not benefit think?

When the budget is unveiled we can discuss further angles.

This will be a multiple-media project using text, pictures, graphics and, if you wish, audio and/or video.

So think about which media best suits each aspect of your feature.

• Will you use vox pop?
• Will a graph explain some aspect of your story more succinctly than just words?

REMEMBER: THIS IS AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM COURSE SO YOU MUST TRANSLATE / VOICE-OVER ALL ELEMENTS INTO ENGLISH

You will produce it on your web site and link back to your blog.

We will discuss your progress in class over the next few weeks so be prepared!

The deadline for delivering your project is April 1 April 6. April 12. April 14.

Assignments Assignments

Assignment Week 2:

Assignment deadlines are 12 noon on the day before class — ie Tuesday at noon for the Wednesday class and Thursday at noon for the Friday class. Those who miss the deadline will receive zero marks for their assignment no matter how good it is.

Produce a report on the subject below and post it to your blog. Keep the text at around the 400-800 600 word level. You can use photos and other media to illuminate your story but bear in mind this is a text-orientated article. Try and come up with a unique angle so that we can include everyone’s report in the to-be-set up Special Reports section of IJS-GLOBAL.COM The subject is:

Coping with Recession: the Lunar New Year 2009

You will need to find a suitable angle. This should not be a “touristy piece” - it should be either a news report or a news feature. For example, angles could include:

• Spending - are people planning /expecting to give / receive less lai see / are restaurants seeing bookings fall? / are people worried about paying off their debts before the festival? etc etc

• Outlook - are people more / less willing to commit to major lifestyle changes in the Year of the Ox - such as getting married / giving birth / making major purchases such as a car / property? etc etc

• What do expats spend over the Lunar New Year? How has this changed from last year?

• What does a fung shiu master predict for the year ahead?

REMEMBER: YOUR DEADLINES ARE: WEDS CLASS - FEB 3 / FRI CLASS - FEB 6, 2009

Assignment Week 1: (two parts)

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Assignments Assignments