Third Paper

 Pick one:

1.  Pick any candidate for House or Senate in the 2024 campaign.  How well is that candidate faring in earned, paid, and social media?  Is the candidate reaching voters with a message that will win support in the primary and general elections?  Taking into account the available financial resources, advise that candidate on how to do better.  

2.  Pick any book about the 2020 election (other than Divided We Stand).  Appraise the book's observations about the media in the election.  Is the treatment fair and balanced?  Does the book distort or omit important aspects of the media campaign?  In your answer, consider course readings. 

3.  Write two op-eds:  one about bias and incivility in the media, and one about the role of the media in the 2024 presidential campaign.  Each should be about 2 1/2 pages long.  On the sixth page, explain your strategy for placing each op-ed in a mainstream publication or website. Use endnotes for this submission. If you succeed in publishing either op-ed, you will get an A for this assignment.  (To qualify for the auto-A, it must appear in a legitimate, professional news outlet for which you submit your work to an editor. Blogs, newsletters, and student publications do not count.)  

4.  Subject to my approval, write on any relevant topic of your choice.  For instance, you may also create video or online ads for a candidate, and use paper to explain the strategy and tactics behind the ads.

• Essays should be typed (12-point), double-spaced, and no more than six pages long. I will not read past the sixth page. 
• Please submit all papers in this course as Word documents, not Google docs or pdfs.
• Cite your sources. Please use endnotes in the format of Chicago Manual of Style.  Endnotes do not count against the page limit. Please do not use footnotes, which take up too much page space. For endnotes, use Arabic numerals, not lower-case Romans. (Click here to see how to change formats.) Follow these steps if you need to convert footnotes to endnotes.
• Do not use ChatGPT or any other generative AI. Misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own work is plagiarism.  
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. 
• Return essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM on Tuesday, November 21  -- four days later than the date on the syllabus. I reserve the right to dock papers one gradepoint for one day’s lateness and a full grade after that.