JO 427, Narrative Journalism, focuses on the craft of true storytelling. Students in the class will study and produce work that adheres to the highest standards and ethics of journalism. Among those are accuracy, fairness, honesty, transparency, independence, impartiality and accountability. Nonfiction narratives are carefully structured, with beginnings, middles and ends. They can be short or long. They can be presented on any media platform, but at their core is good writing. They feature characters rather than sources. They are built on scenes. They have themes. They have stakes. They include sensory detail. They are attuned to the emotional content of the information they explore. They unfold over time. They employ a voice appropriate to the material. They engage, enlighten, and when appropriate, entertain. Although they share certain structural and stylistic elements with great fiction, nothing in them is invented or imagined, and no characters are created or composited. They are true. PREREQ: JO 200 and JO 210.

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