Missing: A Roundup

Decent job overall on the take-home assignment. There are some problems to work out that we'll discuss here, but it's nothing that's unusual for a novice journalist.

There was one situation that came up: someone filed their story late. In this case, the person was specifically waiting for responses to questions they emailed me.

Since I never gave explicit instructions on what to do in such instances, I won't fatal this person this time.

Note I said "this time."

In the future, if you have story questions and I do not respond in a manner that is timely to you, finish the story the best you can and put in writing after the story what your question was, and what you had to do in writing your story to work your way around the unanswered question.

If I decide your question was something that a novice journalist couldn't reasonably figure out on their own (such as choosing between two inconsistent spellings of the same name), then you will not be penalized for the omission. If the omission is something I think you should have been able to figure out on your own (such as an attribution matter, where the attribution is included but perhaps you zipped past it by reading your sourcing too quickly), then you will be docked.

Either way, I expect your assignments to be turned in on deadline. No more exceptions from here on out, unless it's a truly bizarre situation.

P.S., another one of you cut it waaaaay too close in turning in the assignment. This person came within 58 seconds of a time fatal.

Please, don't wait until the last minute to send your story. Your comupter can freeze up. Or your Internet connection can go slow. Or other problems might arise. Just like such problems do in professional newsrooms (where, if you hit such problems and miss a deadline, you can face an editor who will yell at you, "Why did you wait until the last f@#%ing minute to file your story, anyway?" Always give yourselves a time cushion of at least a few minutes so you can overcome any unanticipated last-second problems.)