COMM 337: Assignment for your first 1,000-word analysis paper - public affairs reporting

One of the four 1,000-word analyses assigned in our COMM 337 syllabus (scroll down to section VI ("Course Requirements"), Section C ("Written Assignments") is a public affairs reporting piece. And there's a really good piece in Time magazine on the European sovereign debt crisis and Germany's role in creating - and possibly solving - the crisis. It's by Catherine Mayer, reporting from Frankfurt, and it's headlined "Germany: Grappling with the Euro, and with Its Own Complicated History."

Please read it, post your analysis to your blog next week and turn in a hard copy to me for grading. As you read the story, ask yourself the following questions. And incorporate your answers into a sparkling, witty, trenchant, publishable 1,000-word analysis. Due in class Thursday, Oct. 5:

• Who did Mayer talk to in order to get the story? How many different people? What kinds of information did she get from each? What details by direct observation during her interviews? (b) What details did she get by reading? How many written sources - e.g. books and/or magazines, websites, etc. - did she consult? How long would you guess it took her to get all these details in the story? Was it worth her time? What do the details add to the story?
  
• Is Mayer's story hard news, soft news or a combination? Why do you say that? Does it have a hard lede or a soft lede? What is the tone of her story? Does she seem factual? Objective? Does she express an opinion? Where?
  
• Does Mayer use "literary" techniques in writing the story? If so, what are they? Do they add or detract from the story?

As you read the story, also be thinking about Donald Murry's "little green book that won't go away" and be sure to discuss these points in your analysis of Catherine Mayer's story:

• What does Murray mean by "craft?" What do you mean by it? How does "craft" differ from "art?"
  
• What the @#$%!& does that have to do with writing? With reporting? With your career ambitions as a ______________?
  
• What is the relationship between the craft of reporting and of writing? To Murray? To you?

Post your analysis to the blog, and email me at peterellertsen-at[spelled out this way here to discourage spammers]-yahoo.com when you do.