Interviewing and reporting aims to develop studentsÆ skills at researching and carrying out interviewing face to face and by telephone, and covering a patch as for a local newspaper.

Students will study interviewing in depth, learning how to select interview subjects, research topics and prepare for the interview. They will carry out a face-to-face interview with a newsmaker in class, reflect on that interview and the ones by fellow classmates, and write up both their own and classmatesÆ interviews as news stories. They will research and carry out a telephone interview. During the second half of the semester students will be assigned to a local patch, from which they will, with the guidance of the tutor, produce a portfolio including a report on the area, off diary and on diary stories and short features, with suitable pictures. This material must be designed into pages for a dummy local paper. Classes throughout the semester will include revision on news writing as the students develop and polish their stories. Assessment will be by coursework: production of a portfolio of interviews and a folder of work from the studentÆs patch, and a timed exam on news writing and editing.

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to: * demonstrate an understanding of the principles of good interviewing - identifying the subject, researching the subject beforehand and preparing questions. * apply these skills to the carrying out of a face-to-face interview with a newsmaker. * practise interviewing skills further by conducting a telephone interview. * generate diary and off diary stories suitable for pictures -from a designated local patch.

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to: * demonstrate an understanding of the value of good research before conducting interviews. * show an indepth appreciation of the value of making and nurturing contacts as the best sour

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to: * write two interviews, one face-to-face, with a newsmaker and a second interview from an interview conducted over the phone. * write news and feature stories from a designated local a

This module consists of two hours in a laboratory and a one hour tutorial where the students will be given specific guidelines on good interviewing techniques. Students will be engaged in active learning both inside and outside the laboratory. They will be given exercises on conducting interviews in class, on the telephone and told to rewrite them until they are up to a publishable standard. In the tutorial, the students will be designated specific local areas and told to generate stories from them on a weekly basis. Students will be helped with this process in tutorials. In the laboratory, they will write up these stories and then use their editing and desktop publishing skills to decide the prominece of each story and lay them out on pages for a dummy local newspaper.