Character Profile  Value: 45%

Due: Friday 6 June, Midnight (earlier is fine!)

(1) BASIC INSTRUCTIONS

Present a character profile of a newsworthy person of 600-700 words (absolute minimum
and maximum), based on an interview you have undertaken personally (via
email is not acceptable), for the purposes of this assignment only, and using additional original research as required. Include a headline and your byline (that is, your name).

You may NOT profile someone to whom you are related.

The profile needs to be accompanied by an original photograph, taken by
you, for the purpose of this profile. Include a caption and your byline with the photograph.

Make sure your profile contains the following, in this order, in one document:

–        your full name, student number and tutorial identifer (M14A etc);

–        the photograph, photograph caption, photo byline;

–        profile wordcount, profile headline, profile byline; the profile itself;

–        Present in a serif font (e.g. Times), 12 point, double spaced, with 2.5 cm margins (top, bottom, left, right); page numbered (except for first page).  Do not layout the piece as if it is in a magazine (eg columns). – use standard page layout.

Paragraphs should be indented with no extra lines between paragraphs. Proofread carefully for spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Marking Criteria:
– effective and interesting profile; able to engage and sustain reader’s interest; effective use of direct and indirect quotes; appropriate journalistic style; effective and original photograph;; high standard of expressing, spelling, punctuation and grammar; submitted according to instructions.

Submit via the link on Moodle, as a word document or equivalent (not PDF or ZIP), with the file labelled as follows:  YourName_WT3_TuteIdentifier  (eg SarahNguyen_WT3_H09A)

(2) FURTHER DETAILS

Your task is to produce both the words (in a journalistic style) and an original photograph (in a photojournalistic style) for a brief personality-interview based, character sketch article. (See the Sally White reading, “News of a Softer Kind” for some discussion of personality-interview based soft news items.) The article should provide a “portrait” or short “profile” of a real, living person whom you are in a position to observe at first hand and to interview, and who is intrinsically interesting or engaging in some way, and whose story has some newsworthiness. The person may be “interesting” on account of who they are, how they live their life, their abilities, the work they do, the hobbies or interests they pursue, their obsessions, their family background, their past history, where they live or have lived previously, some noteworthy incident or incidents they have been involved in, the set-backs they have experienced, the views they hold, the plans they have, and so on. They certainly do not need to be “famous” or well-known in any way, and could be a friend, acquaintance, work colleague, class mate, and so on, but not a family member. Note that the newsvalue of ‘timeliness’, if relevant to your profile, will be judged broadly.  For example, if your subject was involved in Anzac Day, you can write your profile as if it is timely in relation to Anzac Day (as opposed to the submission date of the assignment), and we will accept that as being ‘timely’.

Your article needs to be based on an interview you record with the person, and hence a significant proportion of the article will be made up of quotes from them. You need to bear this in mind when you are preparing for the interview with them. You need to consider in advance of the interview what aspects of the person – what lines of enquiry – are likely to provide you with the most interesting material for the character sketch and prepare appropriate questions before you arrive for the interview. These questions need to be formulated with a view to eliciting interesting or colourful quotes from them, and with a view to getting them to provide you with interesting anecdotes about their experiences.

Note as well, that you must write the article as a journalist, not as a commentator or publicist. This means you should avoid passing judgement on the interview subject yourself – i.e. avoid praising or criticizing them explicitly. Your task is to paint a portrait of them in words, not promote them.

When preparing and writing the article, you should have in mind a quite wide readership – i.e. someone who could be of any age and background. You should not write specifically for people of your own age group or for a specific interest group.

You must, of course, inform the person whom you have in mind that you will be producing a short article for publication on a publicly accessible website (we may not do this but articles could be published via Moodle or elsewhere). Accordingly they must agree to this in advance. If they are not prepared to give their permission for such a use, then you must find another subject who will give their permission.

Obviously you need to produce “real” journalism. Thus you can’t invent material or concoct quotes. It is also necessary that the material you present is original, new and uniquely your own – i.e. not based or relying on material which has been previously published or broadcast.

You also need to produce a photograph (taken by yourself, for the purposes of this task) to accompany and support your words. In most cases this will be a photograph of the person being described, but could possibly be of something different – if such an image will help present the person to the reader. You should take a good number of shots in order to come up with a strong, well-composed and engaging picture which will work well with your words and help you in presenting the person to the reader.

You must, of course, gain the person’s permission to take their photograph and advise them that this too could be made public. If they are not willing to have their photograph taken, then you must find another subject.