Class 1/14: The Beginning

On the first day of class, we discussed the origin of the course, the necessity of "doing stuff" even when it scares you, and the importance of developing one "digital" skill in addition to traditional writing skills and the ability to collaborate in teams.

Here's a link to a MediaShift article that got me thinking about pitching this course.

The class takes its inspiration from the Studio 20 graduate program in journalism at NYU, which describes itself likes so:

Each year Studio 20 recruits a mix of writers, editors, videographers, audio journalists, programmers, designers, Web producers and smart people who may have no journalism training at all— under the principle of “bring skills, share skills, learn new stuff.” Recruiting emphasizes students comfortable in more than one medium and ready to tackle new challenges. One of our mottos is: “Everyone works on everything.”

This is not a journalism class, per se—I am interested in you creating *stories*, not necessarily just “news.” That story could be about a business or a non-profit, it could be a profile or human interest story, it could be criticism of arts, music, and culture, or it could be a creative non-fiction story.