Independent teaching notes · Cork, Ireland
Understand the craft before you publish.
Craft of Reporting is a free reading room for the ordinary mechanics of journalism: how a news story is built, how an interview is prepared, how a claim is checked, and where Irish law and professional ethics set the edges of what can be printed.
Everything here is written as chapters to be read at your own pace, with worked figures in words, days and percentages rather than promises. There is nothing to buy, nothing to join and nothing to sign up for.
Chapter one · what this reading room holds
A workbench for reporting, not a prospectus
Most people meet journalism as a finished object: a story on a screen, a clip on a phone, a headline in a feed. The work that produced it is invisible. These notes reverse that view. They describe the sequence a reporter actually follows, from the first phone call to the last sign-off, and they name the points where an honest piece of work can quietly go wrong.
The material is organised into four long lessons and ten shorter subject chapters. The lessons carry the full sequence for one task, with tables, checklists and one arithmetic tool. The subject chapters take a single element of practice and examine it in eight numbered sections. Read either way round: the lessons make more sense with the subjects behind them, and the subjects make more sense once you have seen a whole task assembled.
Sequence, not opinion
Each chapter follows a working order, so you can see where a step belongs rather than collecting isolated tips.
Named public sources
Where a rule or a record matters we name the body that holds it, from the Central Statistics Office to the Office of the Press Ombudsman.
Plain limits
Every chapter states what it cannot settle: what depends on jurisdiction, what needs a solicitor, and what only an editor can decide.
The four lessons
A lesson is a complete pass through one task. It runs to ten numbered sections, carries a comparison table and a checklist, and ends with three questions readers commonly ask. One lesson also holds the story-structure meter, a small arithmetic tool that measures reading time and the share of a story spent on its opening.
Writing a news story
The full sequence from the first phone call to filing, with the story-structure meter for reading time and lede share.
Lesson 02Conducting an interview
Preparation, terms, the question ladder, the room itself, and everything that has to happen after the recorder stops.
Lesson 03Checking the facts
A procedure for testing a draft claim by claim, with a verification log and the arithmetic that catches most number errors.
Lesson 04From notebook to feature
Turning several days of observation and interviews into a long piece that holds together, without inventing a single detail.
The ten subjects
Subject chapters are shorter and narrower. Each one takes a single element of the craft, sets out eight numbered sections, compares approaches in a table and closes with a checklist you can work through before filing. Together they form the curriculum index.
The inverted pyramid
Why hard news puts its heaviest fact first, how the shape is built paragraph by paragraph, and where it stops working.
Subject 02Interview technique
Deciding what an interview is for, building a question ladder, agreeing terms before you start, and handling silence.
Subject 03Fact-checking
Breaking a claim into checkable parts, ranking evidence, reading official records, and flagging what cannot be confirmed.
Subject 04Sources and confidentiality
Motives, agreed terms, protecting identity in a digital trail, and the Irish legal setting around notes and sources.
Subject 05Field reporting
Planning a day out of the office, safety and check-in protocol, observation discipline and filing from a difficult place.
Subject 06Headlines and editing
What a headline promises, how page furniture works, the editing passes that catch different faults, and how to word a correction.
Subject 07Law and ethics basics
The Irish instruments and bodies a reporter meets first, and the ethical questions that sit above them.
Subject 08Narrative structure for features
Scenes, sequence, the nut graf, and how a long piece keeps a reader without inventing anything.
Subject 09Multimedia basics
Choosing a format, the minimum standard for audio, stills and video, and the accessibility duties that come with each.
Subject 10Newsroom workflow and planning
The rhythm of a publishing day, forward planning, copy flow, sign-off and the correction audit trail.
How the material is made
The desk works from records first: statutes and their explanatory material, published codes of practice, statistical releases, court lists and official registers. Secondary commentary is used to locate a primary document, never to replace it. Where two credible sources disagree, the disagreement is kept in the text rather than resolved silently, because the disagreement is usually the instructive part.
Chapters are dated by review cycle rather than by publication stunt. A chapter that depends on a statute or a code is re-read when that instrument changes; a chapter that describes technique is re-read annually. Corrections are logged with the date, the sentence that changed and the reason. The full workflow is set out in the approach chapter.
- A sourcing hierarchy that puts the primary record above any summary of it, described in our approach.
- A correction route with a five-working-day response window, listed on the contact page.
- A defined vocabulary of thirty-six working terms in the glossary, so a word means the same thing in every chapter.
- A written boundary between teaching notes and professional advice in the editorial charter.
Formats you will meet here
Lessons
Ten numbered sections, one table, one checklist, one timeline, three questions. Written to be read in a single sitting of about twenty minutes.
Subjects
Eight numbered sections on one element of practice, with a comparison table and a pre-filing checklist.
Reference
Glossary, approach and questions pages that the chapters lean on instead of repeating themselves.
Arithmetic
One story-structure meter. It divides words by minutes and reports percentages; it makes no judgement about whether a story is good.
Who the notes are written for
The reader the desk pictures is an adult in Ireland who writes something that will be published: a student on a college paper, a community newsletter editor, a freelance contributor, a press officer who wants to understand what a newsroom will do with a release, or somebody deciding whether journalism is a craft they want to learn properly. The notes assume no prior newsroom experience and no professional status.
They are not written for people who need a decision. If you are facing a pre-publication complaint, a demand to hand over notes, a court order or a data-protection request about your own reporting, the chapters can only tell you what kind of problem you have. The decision itself belongs to a qualified professional who can read your documents.
Independence, stated plainly
The site carries no advertising, no sponsored chapter, no affiliate link and no paid placement. It sells nothing, so there is no price list, no enrolment and no invoice. It is funded by the operating company named in the colophon and takes no editorial direction from any outside body. Naming an institution such as Coimisiun na Mean, the Press Council of Ireland or the National Union of Journalists is a neutral reference to a public body or code; it never implies membership, approval, supervision or endorsement in either direction.
Questions readers ask first
Will I get a certificate for reading this?
No. Craft of Reporting awards no qualification, credit or accreditation, and issues no certificate, transcript or letter of completion. It is a reading room, not an awarding body.
Is there a fee, an application or a waiting list?
None. Every chapter is open, there is no account to create, nothing to apply for and no charge of any kind, now or later.
Can the desk tell me whether my article is safe to publish?
No. That is a legal judgement about a specific text in a specific jurisdiction. The law and ethics chapter explains which questions to ask and who is qualified to answer them.
Who writes the chapters?
An editorial desk working to the editorial charter. The notes are published under the desk's collective responsibility rather than under personal bylines, and no individual staff names or photographs are used.