History

1. Take a closer look at one era of newspaper history and report on what you find. Search the Web for your specific topic, such as "penny press," "yellow journalism," "jazz journalism" or "19^th Century Press." How do the journalistic practices of your selected era compare with the ones of today? Write a brief summary of your findings, detailing at least five major changes.

Industry

2. Some college newspapers seem to be part of the alternative press, whereas others are very much organizational papers. Organizational papers tend to present news from the administration's point of view, while the alternative paper will do it from a student, and often an anti-administration, point of view. Most college papers will be a mixture of the two types. Analyze your campus paper to answer the question, "Is it organizational, alternative, or mixed?" Then compare your campus papers with one or two online student papers such as those linked to the Web site of the Daily Beacon, the campus paper of the University of Tennessee, at http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/.*

Controversies

3. Is diversity in the newsroom important? Search the Web for pages devoted to this issue or go directly to Slate magazine's analysis of "Today's Papers" at http://slate.msn.com.* Prepare a brief statement explaining how newsroom diversity might have affected the ways an event is covered by different papers.