Famous Journalists:

Directions: You must choose from this list. These are influential journalists who have made an impact on the industry in the past 100 years. After you choose the journalist, you will follow the following steps for this project.

1. Research your journalist. Write a short bio about him or her in your own words. It is important that you can explain the journalist’s contributions to the newspaper industry. Focus on newspaper industry not novels and other types of literature. 2. Find three items that these journalists have written. Read them. Preferably these will be pieces that have appeared in a newspaper or magazine, shorter pieces, not excerpts from novels or nonfiction books. 3. Print the three pieces. Identify what types of writing these pieces are: commentary, hard news, feature, opinion, entertainment/review, etc. 4. Identify the following techniques of good writing in the three pieces: Green: metaphors, similes and personification Yellow: imagery/sensory details Blue: allusion Orange: loaded words or words that evoke strong emotion positive or negative

Label other observations. For example, did the author use anecdotes, persuasion, or descriptive details to create the response s/he wanted? 5. Choose your favorite piece out of the three. Be ready to talk about this piece along with your bio to the others in your group of five. 6. Choose a topic relevant to the journalism genre you have chosen. Imitate some of the techniques your writer used in his or her piece, and do your best to write a similar news story. 7. In groups of five, share your journalist bio, your journalist’s piece and what makes it strong writing, and your imitation piece. Critique each other’s pieces. 8. Be ready to share your journalist’s bio and the selected piece with the larger class in a three minute presentation. 9. Bind the following together for the final project assessment: The bio, a picture of the journalist, the three highlighted pieces, the imitation article, and an explanation of what you have learned about writing techniques and what differentiates strong writing from mediocre or weak writing.

Journalist List:

James Agee Hannah Arendt Russell Baker James Baldwin Donald L. Barlett Meyer Berger Carl Bernstein Herbert Block (Herblock) Ed Bradley Jimmy Breslin David Broder Art Buchwald William F. Buckley, Jr. Truman Capote Rachel Carson Joan Didion W.E.B. Du Bois Barbara Ehrenreich Nora Ephron Clay Felker Dexter Filkins Frances FitzGerald Thomas Friedman Martha Gellhorn Philip Gourevitch Katharine Graham Linda Greenhouse David Halberstam Pete Hamill Richard Harding Davis Ernest Hemingway Nat Hentoff Bob Herbert Michael Herr John Hersey Seymour Hersh Christopher Hitchens Langston Hughes Murray Kempton Jane Kramer Adrian Nicole LeBlanc Anthony Lewis A. J. Liebling Walter Lippmann J. Anthony Lukas Jane Mayer Mary McCarthy John McPhee H. L. Mencken Joseph Mitchell Gordon Parks Ernie Pyle Anna Quindlen David Remnick A. M. Rosenthal Carl Rowan Mike Royko Neil Sheehan Randy Shilts William Shirer Susan Sontag James B. Steele Lincoln Steffens John Steinbeck Gloria Steinem I. F. Stone Gay Talese Dorothy Thompson Hunter S. Thompson Ida B. Wells E. B. White Theodore White Walter Winchell Tom Wolfe Bob Woodward

Helpful Websites:

List of Outstanding Journalists with Short Descriptions and Bios http://journalism.nyu.edu/the-100-outstanding-journalists-in-the-united-states-in-the-last-100-years/

Interpreting Writing Techniques/Description of writing techniques that are effective http://www.ctl.ua.edu/ctlstudyaids/studyskillsflyers/reading/interpretingwritingtechniques.htm