1. Choose a story, justify your choice, and summarize it in sufficient detail, and justify its importance. Provide any context necessary to understand the story. Research the facts claimed in the story, and the sources cited for information or expertise.
2. Analyze and critique the coverage of the story from multiple sources and viewpoints. How does coverage compare with the research you’ve done? How to explain any discrepancies–does it have to do with the audience, filtering pressures, etc.?
3. Discuss explicitly the role(s) of propaganda in the story and the versions you’ve identified. What techniques are being used, by whom, how/how well, are reporters recognizing the propaganda and contrasting it with verifiable facts, etc.?
4. Describe and document each individual’s contribution(s) in sufficient detail to allow comparison with the quality of work in the paper and presentation. This part is critical, because group members’ grades will be based on each person’s documented contributions to the project–I will do my best to identify free riding and groups, and make sure it isn’t rewarded.
5. Present your group’s work to the class (during Week 10)

Each group member needs to participate in the presentation, which should multi-media. Powerpoint or Prezi  isn’t necessary but you do need to use multiple forms of media in your presentation (some video works well, obviously), as well as provide a one-page handout to students covering the essential points they need to know. This will be used to help students study for the exam, so groups should choose carefully the information they choose to include on the handouts.

Your sources should be multimedia as well—at a minimum print and online sources, and with the prevalence of youtube it would be surprising if you couldn’t find some video footage of some sort to show as well (carefully chosen from all the possibilities …). If your group wants to put together a web page of links to use as visual aids, I will help you put this together on the Web given sufficient lead time. You may want to use links, visuals, text, imagery. Radio (e.g., talk radio) is fair game, but here’s the key—focus on substance, not style. The media you use should not be a distraction to what you’re trying to convey—you wouldn’t want to get caught in the same trap as commercial news media infotainers now, would you?

The point breakdown:

• Turning in a paper: 100 possible points (individuals’ contributions will weigh heavily in scoring this)
• Peer evaluations: 20 possible points (it would be possible to score ‘0’ on this one)
• Presenting in front of your class peers: 30 possible points (everyone must participate)

You will want to:

• Justify your choice of stories—why is it important?
• Summarize the story—what’s it about? Is there any context that goes with it (e.g., Osama bin Laden was originally trained by the U.S. government as part of a CIA-backed insurgency fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan)?
• Document all the sources you checked—the types of outlets, and specific outlets. Show that the story was indeed un- or undercovered by many media outlets. I’ll find out pretty quickly if you haven’t done this. The library has LexisNexis—a search engine that is perfect for this.
• Do research on the facts and the areas of disagreement between different versions of the story—for instance, a story claiming teen pregnancy as an epidemic requires some fact-checking—did the authors choose independent research sources? Did they rely on partisan think tanks? What are the affiliations of any ‘experts’ brought in for comment? A story on climate change requires some verification from credible sources and a need to make the case for their credibility. Same with immigration, where claims get tossed around very often with few or any numbers or sources–if the reporters aren’t examining the logic of the politicians, your group needs to do so, and explain why the reporters aren’t doing it. Stories often also have context, in other words there may be other issues that
• Analyze—Explain why the story was undercovered. Some things to consider (this is not a complete list):
• The propaganda (filtering) model —Herman and Chomsky’s model for understanding news filters will be essential reading for this assignment.
  • ownership dynamics —does the story threaten the owner of major outlets, perhaps even a company that is owned by a major network?
  • Expense, possible liability —investigative journalism is expensive, and mistakes can hurt reputations and credibility—does this help explain why a story wasn’t pursued?
  • political risks —would media outlets incur the wrath of the White House, City Hall, or other powerful politicians by pursuing a story (think back to the pre-war period—people who criticized it were labeled ‘unpatriotic,’ critics often paid a heavy personal or professional price for being outspoken)
  • advertisers —does the story threaten industries that are generous advertisers for major media?
  • ratings dynamics —long, complex stories may not keep readers watching through the commercials. If ratings drop, advertising revenue drops as well (less viewers, less attractive audience for advertisers)
  • Off the ‘radar screen’ —some stories just don’t fit in the corporate news model—genocide in Sudan and the Congo. US aerial bombings in Somalia. But U.S. torture in Iraq?
• Propaganda—how is it used in this story? Could be myriad ways–corporate front groups or ‘astroturf,’ source-filtered research from think tanks, ‘spin’ from politicians, press conferences, think of all the many techniques we’ve discussed in class (plenty of lecture page material in the course website), etc.