Your blog for this semester

There will be two types of blogging for this semester:

1) A blog you will share with a group of your fellow students, who you will be working together as a news agency to report on an issue for the major assignments of the semester.

2) A blog from you that will chronicle your exploration of the city of Ithaca. Each week, you need to get off campus, by either car or TCAT or some other form of conveyance and explore some part or facet of the city previously unknown to you. You should visit a store, a landmark or better yet meet a person who might be a potential news source. You are looking for possible news stories, ideas to meet upcoming assignments and ultimately for your final project, which will be on a topic that you have uncovered that you cared about.

When Arianna Huffington visited last semester, she made an excellent point about the power of online journalism and blogging. Blogging has the potential to constantly report about one issue over and over again until the story breaks into something big. That's my hope for you, that in your travels around Ithaca you find something that you can report on and update each week, hopefully leading to a final project. You may not find something right away -- and what you find to blog on each week may not ultimately be your final project -- but you need to visit the city each week for your blog.

I don't have a textbook for this class, and I don't require hours of research in the library. Instead, you will use the city as your library, finding out something new -- and hopefully newsworthy -- each week. The blogs don't have to be long. A paragraph or two may be enough, but you have to get in the habit of getting off campus.

The other item I require for the blog is the links to three local news stories -- either written word, video or multimedia project -- about the city of Ithaca or the surrounding area.

The contact information for the people you encounter while writing your blog and your other assignments for the semester should be included in your beat notes, which will turned in at the end of the semester.