Media Kit

Media Kit: Due Friday Nov. 13, 2020 at 11:59 p.m.

Purpose: Regardless of what career path you choose, we will have to write content that reaches and audience. Maybe it’s working at a media outlet. Maybe it’s internal communication. Maybe it’s working with media. We can’t do this work if we don’t feel comfortable understanding what news is and how to accurately report it. This assignment is about building the core elements of strategic writing communication so you can work on other elements you will use in your career. We’re building a foundation that will help you bet a better writer and citizen.

Knowledge and Skills:

Understanding basic disciplinary writing skills and building off the lessons of the last assignment
Understanding the research you need to do to write a good article and how to attribute that information to the correct source
Finding ways to be concise and thorough, making the most of word count
Starting the process of understanding AP Style
Knowing what news is and how to connect your news values to the audience
Task:

You will write a basic media kit for an organization. It can’t be an PRactice client.

I want you to write a pitch letter/email to a real journalist who would have interest in covering this event.
Write a news release
Please submit in one word file through Carmen.
We discussed four steps to writing a good pitch email and seven steps on writing a news release. I’ll use that criteria and the syllabus guidelines to grade this assignment.

Some common questions:

How long? The news release should be at least 400 words. The pitch email will be brief; we saw in class how short they can be.
How do I find a client? Think about student causes, non-profits, places where you worked in the past, or local businesses. Do not pick a national brand or you will fail the assignment.
What about photos and video? For this assignment, don’t worry about it.

Please refer to the syllabus for a general grading overview. I also included some national guidelines to help with specific story elements.

LEAD: The Lead (Introduction) answers all or most of the 5Ws and 1H questions or is appropriate for this type of news article; the most important information is here.
BODY/GUTS: The body captures the reader’s attention through the use of colorful, striking and meaningful words and phrases. In addition, the body paragraphs feature the appropriate main ideas; use effective transitions; and make use of quotations with proper attribution for all news sources.
ORGANIZATION: The writer has chosen a method of organization, appropriate to the topic of the news article, most generally inverted pyramid. You have the option of using the diamond format. The writer has managed to present the material in an orderly development of words, sentences and paragraphs to create a clear and unified composition following the most appropriate pattern of this type of news article.
MECHANICS: Writer has used acceptable patterns on the following areas: 1.) Spelling 2.) Punctuation 3.) Grammar/Style/Usage 4.) Consistent Active Voice/Tone 5.) Presentation/Appearance (See Syllabus for formatting)
STEPS:The steps of the pitch email and news release are all used.

Criteria for Success:

In class, we will review successful examples of a media kit

Students will have a chance to grade good, average, and poor media kits to understand my criteria for grading the assignment.

Students will also have a working class where they can show me a sample and work with others on proofing their copy.

All PP will be online, along with video summaries of the content discussed in class.

Excellent work will follow the steps listed in the PP, successfully execute those steps and have few, if any, errors for passive voice, grammar, spelling, and punctuation and the first 20 slides of the AP Style deck.

Average work will likely have grammatical errors listed above and omit or improperly execute the steps listed in the PP.

Subpar work will forget steps, have numerous grammatical errors, and have formatting issues fully addressed in the syllabus.

Memo Rubric

Number of Errors

Penalty

Total Points Lost

Grammar

0 for first mistake. 2% for each subsequent deduction

Lack of Attribution

0 for first mistake. 2% for each subsequent deduction

Two Source Minimum

4% with only one sources F for no sources

Content Assignment Steps

4% for each error. 10% per missed step

Content Accuracy

4% for each error.

Assignment Formatting

10% per syllabus guidelines.

Misspelled Names

Automatic F