Honors Journalism

First Amendment Project

Assigned 3/27/08

Due 4/4/08

Each individual or pair has been assigned a country where Freedom of the Press is threatened, non-existent or declining. It is your job to This project is worth 1/3 of your quarter grade. You will create both a multi-media presentation (power-point) and a feature article reporting on the state of Press freedom in your country. You will use the internet to obtain all of the information for this project. You will also document all your sources using MLA style guides. If you plagiarize so much as a sentence, you will receive a ZERO.

You feature article and presentation must cover the following:

The country's form of government;

the degree of political influence over the news media;

the level of access journalists have to information and news sources;

evidence of censorship or intimidation of journalists by the state or others;

government pressures on media through licensing and advertising funds;

Based on your research findings, student groups should assign their country one of the following press freedom ratings: Free, Partly Free or Not Free.

History of Press freedom in your country

How does the absence of a free press affect your country's citizens?

Anecdotal stories of reporter's experiences.

What steps need to be taken to achieve press freedom and how can they be accomplished.

Your presentation must also include excerpts from your country's news media (video clips, newspapers, etc.) and pictures to illustrate the above. Any audio or video enrichment you can find would be an awesome bonus

Confused? Here are some great places to start your research:

BBC News

Google: your Country name Press Freedom