The Final Project is designed to culminate your knowledge of how to write and edit news stories for different media platforms that serve consumers in the area in which you live. The topic that you will focus on for each of the stories for the Final Project is the one that you presented in your Week One Assignment. The issue that you choose for the Final Project may not be the same or linked to other issues or topics you will write about in other weeks of the course.

This Final Project requires you to tailor news stories for print, broadcast, and digital media. You will choose a topic that is current, controversial and of national or international importance. You must choose real-world media outlets in your local area for which to write or script each story. Although you will not submit your story to the media outlets, the assignment will require that you understand the organizations as well as the audiences that you are writing to and creating the broadcast scripts for. You are required to include a list of media outlets and links to stories where you obtained information to rewrite or script each or your stories.

Topics and Issues
To stimluate your critical thinking process regarding what topic to choose, you should pay close attention to various national news outlets to include print, broadcast, and digital media. National news media are those which programs are available to people across the nation as opposed to being confined to the local area. The Ashford University Library has the following newspaper databases that may also be helpful: Newspaper Source Plus, ProQuest Newsstand, and Canadian Newsstand.

Writing the News Story
You will write a news story for a print publication, digital publication, television broadcast, and news radio broadcast. For the news story you must:

• Select a topic that is current, controversial, and of national or international importance
• Develop the story for real-world media outlets tailored for a local audience

• One mainstream print media publication
• One alternative news media publication
• One television station and specific program
• One talk (news) radio station and specific program
• One digital news media publication

• Incorporate facts, visual elements, and pull-quotes to enhance the story.
• Provide proper attribution for all sources of information included in the story (facts, statistics, images/video, and opinions).
• A list of each of the sources must be included using the Media News Source Template.

The print stories must:

• Adhere to the Mainstream Print Publication and the Alternative Print Publication templates.
• Be a minimum of 350-400 words each.
• Provide proper attribution for all sources of information included in the story (facts, statistics, images/video, and opinions).
• Include at least two visual elements (chart, diagram, photograph, etc.) for the written story and utilize a pull quote in the layout.

 The digital stories must:

• Adhere to the Digital News Publications Template.
• Be a minimum of 350-400 words each.
• Provide proper attribution for all sources of information included in the story (facts, statistics, images/video, and opinions).
• Include at least two visual elements (chart, diagram, photograph, etc.) for the written story and utilize a pull quote in the layout.

The broadcast scripts

• Must adhere to the Broadcast Script Template.
• Must be a minimum of 2 minutes in length each. 
• Must use at least two sources of information. 
• At least two statistical and/or factual pieces of information about the topic from a credible source.
• At least two varying opinions on the topic
• Must include at least two different visual elements scripted into television story.