JOU1100 – Basic Reporting is a 3-credit introduction to news reporting and writing: finding stories, gathering information, interviewing, verifying, and writing them in the forms journalism uses. It is the foundational skills course of a journalism program and is frequently the course that decides whether a student continues in the field.
The course is unusual among introductory courses in being relentlessly practical and graded on accuracy. Students write on deadline, are edited hard, and in most sections face the discipline that defines the field: a factual error — a misspelled name, a wrong title, an incorrect number — fails the assignment outright, regardless of how well written it is. That standard is not arbitrary. Accuracy is the entire product.
Content covers news judgment — what makes something news, news values, and audience; story ideas — where they come from and how to develop them; news structure — the inverted pyramid, leads, nut graphs, and alternative structures; lead writing — summary leads and feature leads; AP style — the standard style guide and why consistency matters; grammar and clarity — concision, active voice, and precision; reporting methods — observation, documents, data, and human sources; interviewing — preparation, question design, listening, and difficult interviews; attribution and quotation — direct, indirect, paraphrase, and the rules governing each; sourcing — source evaluation, named versus anonymous sources, and on/off the record; verification — confirming facts before publication and handling uncertainty; public records and open meetings — how to obtain government information; beat reporting — covering government, courts, education, and public safety; specialized story types — speeches, meetings, obituaries, and breaking news; media law — libel, privacy, and the reporter's protections and exposures; ethics — independence, conflicts of interest, plagiarism, and fabrication; and digital reporting — social media verification, multimedia, and writing for the web.
Offered at Florida institutions with journalism and mass communication programs.
Florida has a substantial media market — Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville are all significant television markets, the state supports metro and community newspapers and a growing set of digital and nonprofit outlets, and Spanish-language media in South Florida is a major sector where bilingual journalists are in real demand. The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg is a national center for journalism training. Students should also know the industry context honestly: newsroom employment has contracted substantially over two decades, entry-level pay is low, and many graduates use these skills in adjacent communications fields.
The grading practice students find harshest and that instructors defend most firmly. In most reporting courses a misspelled name, a wrong title, an incorrect number, or a misattributed quote earns an automatic failing grade on the assignment no matter how good the writing is.
The reason is that this is exactly how the profession works. A published error damages the outlet's credibility, may require a correction, can constitute libel, and in a career is the thing that gets a reporter fired. The habits the rule builds are the ones that matter: spell names back to the source letter by letter, read quotes back when accuracy matters, verify titles and numbers independently rather than trusting your notes, and check the story again before filing. Students who internalize this in the first course develop a reflex that serves them permanently; students who resent it tend not to last.
A genuine and underused advantage for a Florida reporter. Florida's Sunshine Law — open meetings under § 286.011, F.S. — and its public records law under Chapter 119, F.S. are among the broadest in the country, with a right of access written into the state constitution (Article I, Section 24).
Practical points worth knowing. The presumption is that government records are open, with exemptions defined by statute rather than at an agency's discretion. A requester generally need not state a reason or identify themselves. Requests may be made orally, though writing creates a record. Agencies may charge for the actual cost of duplication and, for extensive requests, staff time. Meetings of two or more members of a board discussing business must be noticed and open, which is broader than most states.
The Florida First Amendment Foundation publishes free guidance and sample language. Students should file a real request during this course if the opportunity exists; it converts an abstraction into a usable professional skill. Note that the Legislature adds exemptions regularly, so verify current law.
Where new reporters improve fastest. Novices arrive with a list of questions, ask them in order, and leave — producing a transcript rather than a story. Experienced reporters prepare thoroughly and then listen, following what the source actually said rather than the list.
Specific techniques worth practicing: research before you arrive, so you are not spending the interview on facts you could have looked up; ask open questions and let silence work — people fill pauses, and the material after the pause is often the story; save the hard question for near the end; ask "what am I not asking that I should be?" and "who else should I talk to?"; and always confirm name spelling and title at the end. The uncomfortable part is that good interviewing requires tolerating awkwardness, which is a learnable skill rather than a personality trait.
Worth taking seriously rather than as a distant abstraction. Libel is a false statement of fact, published, that damages reputation. The defenses that matter are truth (the strongest), privilege for fair and accurate reports of official proceedings and records, and opinion that does not imply undisclosed false facts. Public officials and public figures must additionally prove actual malice — knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth — which is a high bar and a deliberate one.
The practical protections are the same habits that make good journalism: verify, attribute to identifiable sources and documents, give the subject of a critical story a genuine opportunity to respond, keep your notes and recordings, and correct errors promptly and visibly. Note also that Florida law and defamation litigation generally have been the subject of active legislative attention in recent sessions — verify current law rather than relying on a textbook edition or this guide.
The most actionable advice in the course. Journalism hiring runs almost entirely on published work, not on grades or degrees. An applicant with a portfolio of real clips beats one with a transcript, every time.
Start immediately and locally: the campus newspaper, the campus radio or television station, a community paper, a local nonprofit outlet, or a specialized blog with real reporting. Cover something nobody else is covering — a small municipality's council meetings, a school board, a county agency — because under-covered beats are where a student can do work of genuine value and get noticed. Internships in Florida newsrooms are competitive and are usually awarded on clips, so the sequence is: write, get clips, get the internship, get the job.
Worth stating clearly so students choose deliberately. Newsroom employment in the United States has contracted sharply over the past two decades, entry-level journalism pay is low relative to the education required, and the work involves nights, weekends, and public criticism. Many students who love the work will nonetheless build careers in adjacent fields.
The optimistic and accurate counterpart: the underlying skills — finding information, interviewing, verifying, and writing clearly and fast on deadline — are scarce and valuable almost everywhere. They transfer directly into public relations, corporate and nonprofit communications, government public information, content strategy, technical writing, and law. And there are genuine growth areas within journalism itself: local nonprofit newsrooms, data and investigative reporting, audio and video, and Spanish-language media in Florida specifically. A student should enter with clear eyes and should treat the skills as the durable asset.
JOU1100 is the introductory reporting course; Florida also carries the subject as JOU2100 at some institutions, with JOU2200 and higher numbers for advanced reporting, and MMC1000 Introduction to Mass Communication as the survey that often precedes it. Related prefixes include RTV (broadcast), PUR (public relations), and ENC2210 (technical writing). SCNS equivalency applies to the same number at the same level, never across numbers, so a student transferring into a journalism major should confirm which number the receiving program requires — and should know that many programs additionally require a grammar and style examination or a portfolio for admission to the major.
Generated September 1, 2026 · Updated September 1, 2026