1
USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL FOR COMMUNICATION
SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
Journalism 582
Specialized Journalism: Reporting on Decisions
Spring 2009
Professor: Michael Parks
Office: KER 207
Phone: Office: (213) 743-5324
Home: (626) 403-0031
Email:
Class: Thursday, 2-4:40 p.m.
ASC 331
Office Hours: Thursday, 10-11:30 a.m.
Course Description
Roughly two-thirds of the stories that specialist journalists cover in fields such as education, science, religion, arts and culture, the environment, the law, urban affairs and business among others involve decisions, directly or implicitly. These may be decisions just made and announced, they may be decisions made earlier but only now apparent, they may be decisions that are under discussion and debate, they may be decisions that should be made—or should not have been made. Decisions are most evident in the coverage of policy and politics, but they are equally crucial in coverage of science (for example, publication of a medical discovery, funding of research), the arts (hiring an artistic director, purchase of artwork), religion (selection of a bishop, marriage of gay couples) or education (curriculum changes, testing criteria).
Journalism 582 focuses on the reporting and analysis of decisions, particularly in the areas covered by specialist journalists, and of the ways in which decisions are made and conveyed. The goal is to sharpen the abilities of specialist journalists to understand decision-making, to search out what is at stake and to explain the issues and their importance to the general public. Often, journalists who report on a decision in progress open the way to broader participation in that process—a role that makes their reporting a valuable resource in a democratic society.
Scholarship on decision making is vast and rich, and some of the most important work for adaptation by journalists has been done through case studies, notably at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and at Harvard’s Business School. Cases provide the grit of reality, and this course will make extensive use of them, including the development by the students of their own case studies.
This final seminar is the last of three courses for mid-career professionals and accomplished journalism school graduates in the Master of Arts in Specialized Journalism program. As such, it presumes both a high degree of professional skills and broad experience. Throughout the course, there will be an explicit goal of improving the practice of journalism, not only in understanding the way that it is done today and acquiring that ability.
Goals and Outcomes
- Acquaint students with decision-analysis studies, particularly case-study materials, and enable them to adapt these for use in journalism.
- Improve students’ ability to report and analyze decisions, especially as they are made in areas covered by specialist journalists, so that the general public understands the issues, the different perspectives, the options, the forces at play and the stakes.
- Enhance students’ critical faculties and their ability to apply them both to areas of specialized coverage and to journalism.
- Develop models of solutions-based journalism that can be use in covering education, religion, science, technology and other specialty areas.
Organization
The course is organized into rough thirds. In the first, we will use case studies from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and other policy-study centers to examine decision-making and explore ways in which a specialist journalist might search out, understand and analyze decisions better. In the second part, we will use cases developed and presented by faculty members from the School of Journalism, each with a background in specialized journalism, to examine how selected decisions were made, reported and analyzed—and how the news coverage might have been better. Finally, in the third phase, students will present and debate case studies they have developed in areas covered by specialist journalists.
Throughout, we will focus on how decisions were made—what were the drivers, who were the decision-makers, what were the options, what outside factors influenced the decisions, who were the other stakeholders, what roles did they have, how the decisions were presented and what the results of the decisions were. We will also specifically examine news coverage, analysis and commentary and how they affected the outcomes. How could that news coverage have been better?
In addition to the course instructor, seminar participants will include other members of the School of Journalism, specialist journalists and academic discussants.
The literature on decision analysis is extensive. We will use as a primary text the classic Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, which draws upon case studies developed at the Kennedy School of Government by Richard Neustadt and Ernest May. We will also use Edward Tenner’s richly detailed analysis of decisions gone awry—Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences—for its cautionary tales. We will supplement these with selected articles that will be distributed in handouts and posted on Blackboard. Students wanting to deepen their theoretical understanding should explore another classic text, Howard Raiffa’s Decision Analysis.
Requirements
Paper #1—A 1,500-word analytical paper describing and examining news coverage, including analysis and commentary, of the decision. Using the Neustadt-May methodology, assess that coverage for its perceptiveness in understanding and explaining the decision to the general public. What did the specialist journalists get right, what did they miss? Why? In what ways did news coverage, including analysis and commentary, affect the outcome of the decision? This paper is due March 5. Please attach supportive materials, such as copies of the announcement of the decision and news coverage. Twenty per cent of final grade.
Paper #2—A 1,500-word analytical paper examining specialized coverage in one area over the past year, focusing on the major decisions there. Apply the course methodology and assess the quality of the coverage, the analysis of the decision-making and the explanation to the general public. How might the journalism have been better? Please include copies of the news reports, analyses and commentaries cited. This paper is due April 9. Twenty percent of final grade.
Paper #3—A reflective essay of 1,200 words on the applicability of decision analysis as a journalistic tool and an outline of ways that it might be introduced in your newsroom. This paper is due April 30. Ten percent of final grade.
Paper #4—You will work in teams to prepare a case study of a pivotal decision in an area of specialist news coverage and how the reporting, analysis and commentary could be improved. This case can be historical, recent or current. Students will make joint presentations in the last phase of the course. Each student, however, will write a comprehensive paper on the case study. This paper is the final project of the course. It is due on the University-set date for the final exam in this course. Forty per cent of the final grade.
Class participation and presentations—Ten per cent of final grade.
There is no final exam in this course. Paper #4, your case study, takes its place.
Attendance is required at each session. Please notify the instructor if you will miss class or a deadline on account of illness or other serious reason.
Follow the Associated Press Stylebook & Libel Manual for written assignments. Please do not depend on your computer to catch spelling, grammar or punctuation errors. Sloppiness will have a negative impact on your grade for the assignment.
Each student must have a USC Internet account for this class. These Internet accounts will be used for the distribution of class materials and for communication between the instructors and students.
Remember that this is a journalism course—you should expect the syllabus to change as developments warrant.
Academic Integrity Policy
The following is the USC Annenberg School of Journalism’s policy on academic integrity as published in the USC Catalogue and repeated in the syllabus for every course in the school:
Since its founding, the USC School of Journalism has maintained a commitment to the highest standards of ethical conduct and academic excellence. Any student found guilty of plagiarism, fabrication cheating on examinations or purchasing papers or other assignments will receive a failing grade in the course and will be dismissed as major from the School of Journalism. There are no exceptions to this policy.
Plagiarism is defined as taking ideas or writings from another and passing them off as one’s own; in journalism and in public relations, this means appropriating the words or ideas of another without clear attribution. Please err on the side of citing too much rather than not enough.
Because of the importance of integrity to the profession of journalism, we hold ourselves to the highest standards and will not countenance anything less.
Disability Services and Programs
Any students requesting academic accommodations based on a disability are required to register each semester with USC’s Disability Services and Programs (DSP). A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained after adequate documentation is filed. Please be sure the letter is delivered to the instructor as early in the semester as possible. DSP is open Monday through Friday, 8.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The office is located in STU 301, and the phone number is 213-740-0776.
Course Materials
Required:
Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, New York: The Free Press. Please get the latest edition.
Edward Tenner, Why Things Bite Back—Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences, Vintage, 1997.
Recommended:
Howard Raiffa, Decision Analysis, Reading, MA: AddisonWesley, 1968.
John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney and Howard Raiffa, Smarter Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions, Harvard Business School Press, 1999.
In addition, selected articles on decision making and case studies will be handed out through the semester. Students may want to get a three-ring binder to hold them. Further materials will be distributed in class or made available on our class Blackboard.
Schedule: The Order of March, Week by Week
PART ONE—THE STUDY OF DECISION-MAKING
January 15—Introduction to the course. How and why decisions are made, how better reporting increases public understanding and potentially participation in decisions of public interest. How decision analysis could improve specialized journalism. Discussion of our methodology of decision analysis and the use of case studies.
Reading assignment for next class:
Neustadt and May, Preface and Chapters 1 through 8.
Peter F. Drucker, “The Effective Decision” in Management: Tasks, Responsibilities and Practices, Harper & Row, 1973 (handout).
January 22—How leaders make decisions. Reasoning from analogies, drawing lessons from past decisions, considering options, probing presumptions. Applying the Neustadt and May methodology in journalism. What is alike, and what is not; what is known, what is unknown, what is presumed? Assessing the odds that the presumptions will prove correct. How leaders weigh options. Review of the classic case study—President Kennedy’s approval of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba. The “Goldberg” approach: Asking not what the problem is, but what the story is. In reporting and analyzing decisions, drawing lessons from history for your story, explaining or challenging underlying assumptions.
Reading assignment for next class:
Neustadt and May, Chapters 9-12.
January 29—Understanding the motives behind decisions. The Neustadt-May method of “placing” people and organizations, including “strangers,” and assessing their differing outlooks and likely motivations. Understanding misperceptions. The differences between “what to do” and “how to do it”: the challenges of policy and management, of analysis and implementation. Review of case studies from Neustadt and May and the Kennedy School with emphasis on the varied ways that those involved in decisions see their options.
Reading assignment for next class:
Neustadt and May, Chapters 13 and 14.
February 5—Seeing time in a stream. Placing decisions in a historical perspective, evaluating what is a crisis, recognizing turning points. Measures of what really changes things. A decade vs. a century. Examples from specialist journalism of news that was under-appreciated and that those were exaggerated and why.
Reading assignment for the next class:
Tenner, Chapters 1 through 7.
Handout materials on public relations.
February 12— Announcing decisions: What goes into the public relations planning of announcements. How to take advantage of a well-planned announcement—and how to avoid being taken in. Guest lecturer: Prof. Jerry Swerling from the School of Journalism’s public relations faculty.
Reading assignment for the next class:
Jeff Conklin, “Wicked Problems and Social Complexity” in Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems, Wiley, 2005 (handout).
John C. Camillus, “Strategy as a Wicked Problem,” Harvard Business Review, May 2008.
February 19— Wicked problems. There are some, in fact many, problems that defy definition, and yet must be approached if not solved. These problems are often at the core of specialized journalism. Some are quite large and obviously difficult—world hunger, malnutrition in urban slums, ecological sustainability, basic literacy—and some are deceptively simple, such as manufacturing safer cars. Horst Rittel, who taught planning and design at UC Berkeley, invented the term of “wicked problems” to contrast them with what he called the “tame” problems of mathematics, chess and other problems that are challenging but solvable. In a few words, wicked problems can be seen as having contradictory, changing and incomplete requirements, and their solutions are inherently difficult because of the complex interdependencies. The decisions that result from attempting to solve “wicked problems” inevitably are among the most difficult to analyze and report.
Reading assignment for the next class:
Tenner, Chapters 8 through 12.
John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney and Howard Raiffa, “The Hidden Traps in Decision Making,” Harvard Business Review, September-October 1998.
February 26—When decisions go bad: A forensic approach to decision analysis for specialist journalists. Quite often, the specialist journalist is called upon to explain why a decision went wrong. Sometimes, these are decisions that were made and not noticed until a crisis develops; sometimes they are crises that generally lie outside a specialist journalist’s normal beat, but require a careful deconstruction of the underlying decisions (or lack of them).
Summing up. Applying the lessons of Neustadt and May and of Tenner to specialized journalism. Examining current cases in the news to see how the reporting and analysis might have been improved.