Master of Science - Specializations
The school offers four media specializations: Newspaper, Broadcast (either radio or television,) Magazine and New Media and the Stabile Investigative Journalism specialization. Although the choice of a spring-term workshop is the primary factor in determining a specialization, some specializations include fall-term requirements. Students are assigned to specializations based on their original applications to the school.
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Broadcast (either radio or television)
Magazine
New Media
Newspaper
Stabile - Investigative Journalism
All new full-time M.S. students must double check their specialization on the Students' Specialization Listing page. The only switches possible are for those who want to leave broadcast or new media for print, ie, newspaper/magazine. If you are a broadcast or new media student who wants to move to print, please send e-mail to dos@jrn.columbia.edu and we will approve you to fill out a print ballot. For those with an interest in switching to broadcast or new media, we have a waitlist you can join by sending e-mail to dos@jrn.columbia.edu.
Note: Students who complete a ballot for a specialization other than the one to which they are assigned will have their classes assigned randomly in their assigned specialization.
Broadcast
Broadcast student on her beat; conducting an interview in the St. Marks Bookstore.
Coordinator: Ann Cooper
Students who specialize in broadcast journalism take many of the same courses as their print colleagues to assure the greatest degree of cross-training, thereby providing them with an important competitive advantage as professional journalists. In the fall, students in the broadcast specialization take an expanded (8 credits) version of RWI (Reporting and Writing I), jointly taught by print and broadcast faculty; this course begins with extensive work in radio and print, and then adds television journalism. In addition, in the fall students take a 5-Week Mini Course, "Television News Writing," which concentrates on script-writing for different broadcast formats. In the spring term, students have the choice of four broadcast workshops: Radio, TV Documentary, Television Magazine Production and TV Nightly News. In each, students are challenged to cover a wide variety of subjects, utilizing a wide range of story-telling techniques. Students in the Broadcast specialization may also have the opportunity to produce their longest and best work in a radio or television Master's Project. Some broadcast students choose to take Broadcast Management as their spring elective. Part-time students take a separate print RWI, followed by TV Reporting and Writing, offered in the fall.
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Radio
TV Nightly News
Magazine
Coordinator: Victor Navasky
The magazine specialization offers students a range of courses designed not only to prepare them for careers in magazine journalism, but also to hone the reporting and writing skills that they can apply to any print medium. The curriculum includes courses on magazine writing, literary journalism and magazine management as well as two spring workshops in which students produce prototype magazines. In these workshops students perform virtually all the tasks of a magazine staff writer and editor -- from writing and story assignment, to fact checking and copy editing. Most importantly, the magazine specialization provides students with the templates for doing the sort of imaginative, lasting and compelling work that is magazine journalism at its best.
Magazine journalism courses are offered through the George T. Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism. Students must take one of the magazine workshops offered in the spring but are not required to take Magazine Writing in the fall. In the spring, however, they are required to attend the Delacorte Lectures (one-half credit, J6050y), a series of ten evening events at which the editors of well-known publications discuss essential elements of magazine journalism. Magazine courses offered under the auspices of the Delacorte Center include: Magazine Writing; Literary Journalism; Narrative Writing; The Literature of Non-Fiction; Producing a Magazine; and Delacorte Evening Lecture Series.
New Media
Coordinator: Duy Linh Tu
New media alumni are editors, producers and reporters at the multimedia departments of major news organizations as well as founders of niche Web sites. They put to work the varied skills we teach, incorporating the best of traditional journalism with online tools that tell stories better.
Bringing lively discussion of current issues to students and faculty alike, the Hearst New Media Professional in Residence is an expert from the field of new-media journalism who lectures and works with new media classes. Adrian Holovaty, Dan Okrent, Rich Jaroslovsky, and Michael Moran have served as Hearst Fellows.
Full-time students who specialize in this discipline must take RWI, Advanced New Media Skills, the fall RWII elective Issues in Online News, as well as the New Media Workshop in the Spring. Other students interested in learning about online journalism may take the New Media Skills class in the fall, and learn how to make Web pages and use image editing software.
Newspaper
Coordinator: Ari Goldman
Students with a newspaper specialization take the regular, 6-credit version of RWI in the fall and a Newspaper Workshop in the spring, either The Bronx Beat or Columbia News Service. Both workshops are taught by newspaper editors and strive to create the atmosphere of working in the real newspaper world. The Bronx Beat is recommended for those who have no newspaper experience and wish to see what it's like cooperating with fellow students to put out a paper. Here, you'll be covering communities in the Bronx, coming up with regular assignments, writing stories, editing each other's copy and learning how to meet strict deadlines. Working for Columbia News Service, you'll be producing feature stories that are syndicated to newspapers around the country. This workshop not only provides students practice in conceiving, reporting and writing their own pieces but also gives them a chance to assemble a file of by-lined clips.
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The Bronx Beat
Columbia News Service
The Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism
The Stabile Center is dedicated to training students in investigative reporting. Candidates for the M.S. degree may choose to pursue this platform-neutral specialization. All Stabile students will be required to meet regularly with the Center’s director, Sheila Coronel, or with investigative journalist Wayne Barrett, and will work with them for their Master’s Projects (if students are approved to do a broadcast or new media project, another adviser will be assigned). In the fall semester, all Stabile students will be registered for Computer-Assisted Reporting Skills. In the spring semester, Stabile students will be registered for Investigative Techniques for the Investigative Seminar. This concentration requires special application.
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Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism
Sheila Coronel's bio
Wayne Barrett's bio
Robert Port's bio
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