A1 – The first assignment, ‘The Idea‘, asked us to individually research a possible topic for a comedy news story. We had to explain why we thought this had the potential to become an engaging comedy news story and analyse any existing media surrounding the issue. This would form the basis for A2.

A2 – The second assignment, ‘The Research‘, was a more in depth look at the topic identified in A1 in groups of three or four. For this assignment we had to do intensive background research on the topic in order to answer such questions as ‘has current reporting on the issue been fair and balanced’ and ‘how difficult is it to find information about the topic’. This research was designed to mimic the sort of work comedy news writers would do every day.

A3 – Assignment three, ‘The Proposal’, involved taking the research collected in A2 and showing how it could be developed into a segment in a comedy news show. For this assignment we were required to write a sample script, discuss production requirements and social media potential, and talk about why we thought it would be successful as a topic on a comedy news show. This work was divided amongst the same group members as assignment two.

A4 – The fourth assignment, ‘The Comedy Newsroom‘, was the culmination of the semester’s work. For this assignment we had to bring our proposals to life and create an episode of our own comedy news show. We were each assigned production roles for the different segments and, over two days, we filmed the scripts we had written for the previous assignment. During and after the filming we were required to write blog posts that detailed the successes and shortcomings of the production, as well as how our understanding of comedy news had changed throughout the semester.