Spring 2027

Principles and Practices of Reporting

Principles and Practices of Reporting covers basic reporting for print and electronic media, involving the creation of print, audio, and web-based news stories on a current public issue.

offering recorded4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Jacob KushnerPatricia Hastings

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Stephen Vaughn

The workload included covering one story within an assigned beat every week during the second half of the semester, which some students found to be a hassle.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Determine what is newsworthy (What is a story?).

  • Report stories accurately and thoroughly.

  • Write stories clearly and correctly.

  • Produce stories to fit different media.

  • Revise, responding to editorial feedback for the purposes of publishing.

  • Report and write a major feature story within a group.

  • Evaluate traditional journalism practices and content.

  • Critique traditional journalism with more sophisticated analysis techniques.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

JOURN 202 or graduate/professional standing

JOURN 335 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.70 GPA, 90.0% A/AB (n=20 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.61 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=23 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.63 GPA, 94.7% A/AB (n=19 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JACK MITCHELL is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Spring 2010. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

PATRICIA HASTINGS is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

STEPHEN VAUGHN is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

STEVEN WALTERS is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Spring 2007, Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 200
LEC 002Classroom Instruction0 / 200

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Jack Mitchell

Students found the course focused on actual reporting practice rather than PowerPoint lectures, requiring them to work on issues typical for news and feature writers.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.79 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=51 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.78 GPA, 86.0% A/AB (n=50 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.67 GPA, 86.8% A/AB (n=38 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Stephen Vaughn

The workload included covering one story within an assigned beat every week during the second half of the semester, which some students found to be a hassle.

Past student reviews · Steve Walters

Past students noted that early morning class times were inconvenient, but this schedule allowed for better interviews and stories compared to other sections.

Topics

  • Basic reporting for print and electronic media
  • Creating print, audio, and web-based news stories on a current public issue
  • Group reporting and writing of a major feature story
  • Critiquing traditional journalism with sophisticated analysis

Skills

  • Determining what is newsworthy
  • Reporting stories accurately and thoroughly
  • Writing stories clearly and correctly
  • Producing stories for different media
  • Revising work based on editorial feedback
  • Evaluating traditional journalism practices

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

7 earlier forecasts · 0.16 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
JOURN 335 · Spring 2027

Principles and Practices of Reporting

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:512:021438",
    "course_id": "JOURN 335",
    "course_uid": "course_8d1a863312e63ed5c2fc2c6b",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "021438",
    "source_subject_id": "512",
    "title": "Principles and Practices of Reporting",
    "credits_min": 4,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "327c2494d2b20bb98b3a2edeeaf5cb85204ea9429935e40fa635ff8b54f3b662",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}