M.S. Fall 2008 Courses

Required Courses, Master's Project, Specialized Reporting/Writing Electives (RWII), Skills of the Journalist, and Other Fall Term Courses

Required Courses

Reporting and Writing (RWI) 6 credits
Note: we will assign you to a RWI section and instructor(s)

This is the core course in reporting and writing on which much of the students' work is built. Using metropolitan New York as a laboratory, students cover a variety of news events and issues. Street reporting is supplemented by weekly deadline writing exercises under the supervision of the Faculty and by assignments designed to familiarize students with material they will encounter in professional work.

RWI seeks to blend instruction in the craft and the substance of journalism so that graduating students are accurate, clear and complete in their writing, can meet a deadline, understand how to gather and to verify material, report in a fair and balanced manner and have an understanding of several subject areas that are essential to reporting.

Competence in varied subjects is stressed. Weekly sessions explore such topics as reporting on police, courts, politics, education and race and ethnicity. Weekly seminars review student work and examine the craft.

Street Reporting: Instructors give students at least one street reporting assignment each week. Some assignments may come from the AP Daybook, i.e., stories to be covered and written that day; others may require in-depth coverage for an entire day, to be handed in the same day or the following day. Later in the term, instructors may ask students to execute longer pieces requiring reporting/writing spanning two or three weeks.

Deadline Writing: One day per week, students spend several hours writing in class, under deadline conditions, and with on-the-spot supervision. Sometimes, students are given material in class from which to write their stories, while other days they must develop their own sources.

Professional standards are expected. Instructors expect students to use a dictionary and grammar handbook. Errors in punctuation, spelling, and grammar may be grounds for failing a paper. Students are asked to rewrite papers which fail to meet their instructors' standards.
RW1 Print Professors include: Cabral, Dinges, Goldman, Matloff, Maharidge, Ojito, Padwe, Rimmer, and Shapiro.

Reporting and Writing for Broadcasting (RWI) 8 credits
Several sections of RWI will be tailored for broadcast students and taught jointly by print and broadcast professors. The course will cover the same print reporting techniques as other sections, plus reporting for radio and television. Because the Jumbo RWI is an eight-credit course, broadcast students DO NOT take an RWII elective.
Broadcast RWI Instructors: Cooper and West; Lipton and Cutbirth; and Muha and Cross.

Journalism, the Law and Society 2 credits
Instructors: Vincent Blasi, Anthony Lewis, Floyd Abrams and John Zucker, Roger Newman
Fri., 9 a.m.-12 p.m. (Blasi, Lewis and Abrams), Wed., 7:30-9:30 p.m. (Zucker or Newman)
The course examines the current and historic conflicts between journalists and jurists over fundamental First Amendment issues such as libel, privacy, prior restraint against publishing the news, protection of sources, the right to gather news, and national security. Broadcast regulations, including the Fairness Doctrine and questions of equal time and access are also explored. Reading includes texts of landmark cases. Two special sessions at the end of the course concentrate on practical aspects of libel and invasion of privacy. This course includes a final examination.
Note: All full-time students except international students will automatically be enrolled in the Friday section of this course. International students do not take this course; instead, are automatically enrolled in The U.S. as a Foreign Country.
Additional Note: part time students may enroll in either the Friday section or the alternate sections taught by John Zucker and Roger Newman, Wednesdays 7:30-9:30 p.m. Advanced fellows and others should enroll in one of the Wednesday evening sections.

New York As a Foreign Country 2 credits
Instructor: Josh Friedman
Fri., 9-11 a.m.
This course is required of students in the International Division. A series of class meetings and field experiences designed to help foreign students overcome differences between their home communities and New York City and the U.S. so they can more effectively carry out the local assignments that form the core of the Fall curriculum.
International students only (who will be automatically registered).

Critical Issues in Journalism 2 credits
Instructors: David Klatell, Andie Tucher Fri., 12:30-3 p.m., Richard Wald Thurs., 7-9 p.m.
This course, required of all students, explores the social role of journalism and the journalist from legal, historical, ethical, and economic perspectives. While the course covers some of the same issues raised in Journalism, the Law and Society, they are examined more from an ethical and professional point of view.
Note: All full-time students are automatically enrolled in the Friday section; part time students may enroll in the Thursday night or the Friday section. Knight Bagehot fellows and should enroll in the Thursday section.

Master's Project

3 credits in Fall 3 credits in Spring
In its scope and duration, the Master's Project is a student's most sustained effort of the year. In terms of relative importance, credits and priority, however, it should be kept in proper perspective with the rest of the curriculum. The Project is not a master's thesis in the traditional academic sense, but rather an in-depth exploration of a topic as a journalist would pursue it.

Master's Projects may be executed in print, new media or broadcast (radio or television) forms. Students work on radio and print projects individually, and students doing video or new media projects work with one or two partners. Video documentary projects require an extra semester (see below).

An assigned faculty adviser offers advice in selecting a topic, fixing its focus and working through an approach, conducting the research and doing the reporting and interviewing, and organizing, writing, rewriting (and recording and re-recording, where appropriate) and polishing the various versions. Some faculty advisers specialize in one or more subject areas, so you may wish to indicate the general topic you hope to pursue for your Master's Project.

We would like to know from students which type of project they would like to undertake-including the general topic, if that is known now. Students should indicate their preferences, even if they are tentative, on the Fall ballot, since an attempt will be made to match faculty advisers with students according to their preferences.

Students will begin meeting with their adviser in September, and thereafter depending on the arrangement worked out between individual students and their adviser.

Master's Project Requirements
Every student carrying out a project must meet the minimum requirements of 1) a proposal; 2) an early outline; and 3) three drafts or edits. Some variations are permitted at the discretion of individual advisers. The broadcast (see below) and new media faculty have slightly different requirements.

Students must meet with their advisers during the Fall to develop a topic. That topic must be fixed by Nov. 17. Serious work on the project will proceed during the Fall as well as over the holiday break. A "billboard" or brief description, preliminary outline and a list of likely sources must be submitted to advisers December 1. The results of your initial reporting and interviews are due by December 15 - your adviser will specify what he/she requires. The first draft is due on January 19, 2008. The second draft is due Feb. 23. The third-and final-draft will be turned in at the end of the Spring break, March 23.

You should stay in close and frequent contact with your adviser, who will explain the school's expectations and stipulations for completion of the Project.

Choosing a Topic
Students should consider a topic that is significant, interesting, and feasible and will sustain their interest over months of research. The Faculty recommends that students choose topics that make them passionate or that at least really interest them. One does not have to be an expert on the subject; indeed, a good reporter becomes an expert.

For both logistical and educational reasons, the topic must focus on the New York area-that is, the student must collect most of the necessary information, and interview characters in person in the New York area. Some telephone interviews and computer-assisted reporting are likely needed, but they cannot predominate. Projects that need reporting in a foreign country will not be approved. Projects needing substantial reporting outside of the New York region also are discouraged.

Print Projects should run between 5,000 and 8,000 words but may go longer if the material requires it and if the adviser so recommends. Those executed in broadcast or new media form vary according to the complexity of the material involved; most are the equivalent of a 30-minute documentary.

*New* Required Third Semester for Video Masters Project
Students who opt to complete a video project must stay for one semester beyond graduation to complete their work. The faculty believes that high-quality, 30-minute video documentaries need more time than our 10-month degree program permits. The proposal and acceptance process for television masters projects will take place well into the fall semester, 2008. There is no need to make a decision about this now. Approximate extra tuition cost will be $9,000 for the third semester. Significant scholarship aid is available to help defray that cost if needed.

Master's Project Reference List
These are highly recommended as examples of the kind of journalism to which the Master's Project aspires:
• Helen Benedict: Portraits in Print (Columbia University Press, 1991)
• Joan Didion: Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Washington Square Press, 1991) and The White Album (Simon & Schuster, 1979)
• Oriana Fallaci: Interview with History (Houghton Mifflin, 1977)
• Frances Fitzgerald: Cities on a Hill (Simon & Schuster, 1986)
• Samuel Freedman: Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church (HarperCollins, 1994)
• Pete Hamill: Piecework (Little Brown, 1996)
• LynNell Hancock: Hands to Work: The Stories of Three Families Racing the Welfare Clock (William Morrow, 2002)
• Randolph T. Holhut: The George Seldes Reader (Barricade Books, 1994)
• J. Anthony Lukas: Common Ground (Knopf, 1985)
• William Lutz: The New Doublespeak (Harper Collins, 1996)
• John McPhee: The John McPhee Reader (Vintage, 1976, originally published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• Jessica Mitford: Poison Penmanship (Knopf, 1979)
• Sylvia Nasar: A Beautiful Mind (Touchstone, 2001)
• Bruce Porter: Blow (St. Martin's Press, 1994)
• Michael Shapiro: Solomon's Sword: Two Families and the Children the State Took Away (Westview Press, 2002)
• In-depth broadcasts such as Frontline, 60 Minutes, All Things Considered, Nightline, and various radio and television documentaries

The following are print Master's Project advisers for which students may ballot. Broadcast and New Media advisers are assigned during the pitch and approval process. Stabile students are automatically assigned to Sheila Coronel or Wayne Barrett - broadcast and new media Stabiles will pick up an additional adviser for that medium if they are selected to do a project in it: Gwenda Blair; Richard Bradley; Kevin Buckley; Nina Burleigh; Evan Cornog; Kevin Coyne; Brent Cunningham; Joe Cutbirth; Tom Edsall; Pam Frederick; Josh Friedman; Todd Gitlin; Ari Goldman; David Hajdu; LynNell Hancock; Neil Hickey; Mike Hoyt; Michael Janeway; Peter Kann; David Klatell; Christopher Lehmann-Haupt; Nicholas Lemann; Robert Love; Dale Maharidge; Arlene Morgan; Nicole Neroulias; Joseph Nocera; Addie Rimmer; Ernie Sander; Robin Schatz; Jack Schwartz; Michael Shapiro; Alisa Solomon; Paula Span; Andie Tucher; Cynthia Zarin.

Specialized Reporting/Writing Electives (RWII)

As the title indicates, these 10-week courses focus on specific news beats, such as international reporting or business reporting, or on specific media, such as feature writing. While an average of three writing assignments are given, instructors in most courses stress subject matter. All seminars include a weekly 2-3 hour class meeting on Monday, Wednesday or Thursday, usually in the evening, or on Saturdays. (Schedule adjustments may be needed for Thanksgiving week.) No classes for full-time students are offered Tuesday evenings, because these students are required to attend the School's all-class lectures and panel discussions. Part time students are invited, but not required to participate.

Specialization is continued and expanded in the spring term in the two-day Advanced Reporting/Writing Seminars. Thus, in the spring students can either choose a second specialty or enlarge on the one taken in the first term. In courses that are offered in both the fall and spring terms, such as "Personal and Professional Style," students who fail to get their first choice in the Fall have another chance in the spring.

Print students will take one of the classes below; new media students will automatically be registered for New Media Newsroom.

The Art of the Profile (I) – John Bennet
The Art of the Profile (II) – LynNell Hancock
Art of the Rewrite—Professor TBA
Business and Financial Journalism (I) – Mike Miller
Business and Financial Journalism (II) – Cheryl Strauss-Einhorn
Covering National Politics – Thomas Edsall
Covering New York Politics – Wayne Barrett
Creating the Modern Critical Essay – Michael Janeway
Cultural Affairs Reporting and Writing – Charles Taylor
Environmental Reporting – Jocelyn Zuckerman
International Reporting – Tom Kent
Foreign Reporting Off the Beaten Path – Howard French
Investigative Techniques – Robert Port (for non-Stabile Students in Fall, Stabile students in Spring)
News Editing – Nancy Sharkey
New Media Newsroom – Sig Gissler, Stephen Isaacs, Duy Linh Tu
Opinion Writing – Gwenda Blair
Personal and Professional Style – Judith Crist
Social Impact of Mass Media – Andie Tucher
Techniques of Feature Writing (I) – Dale Russakoff
Techniques of Feature Writing (II) – Paula Span
Transparency and Democracy – Michael Schudson
Writing With Style – Kevin Coyne

The Art of the Profile
Instructor: John Bennet, LynNell Hancock
(Bennet) Mon., 7 to 9 p.m.
This elective offers an in-depth chance to read, study and write profiles. The reading list includes John McPhee, Jane Kramer, Calvin Trillin, Gay Talese, Susan Orlean, Joan Didion and others. Students will write two short profiles and one long one. Your work will be critiqued in class and edited in detail.

Instructor: (Hancock) Mon., 5 to 7 p.m.
The profile in the hands of a master is a powerful form. The profile writer has the daunting task of painting an authentic portrait of another human being’s life with words and insights. Students new to the craft will learn techniques useful to most any form of journalism: how to choose a subject, how to interview, observe, analyze, and draw conclusions. Students will explore the art of description and narrative voice, and will grapple with the ethical dilemmas faced by journalists who become too close by necessity to their profile subjects. We will read and study some of the best profile writers from various journalistic media. Assignments will include two short profiles and one long one, as well as occasional in-class writing exercises.

Cultural Affairs Reporting and Writing
Instructor: Charles Taylor
Mon. 7 to 9 p.m.
This course will help aspiring journalists understand the elements that make up successful, authoritative cultural reporting. Working from a definition of culture that encompasses the arts, politics, and the zeitgeist in general, we will, among other areas, study personality profiles, arts criticism, and the kind of longform literary political criticism that has become orphaned in the era of the sound byte and 24-news cycle. We will focus on developing fresh resonant ideas free of the hype and barely disguised publicity that has come to define too much arts and entertainment -- and, sadly, political -- coverage in the age of celebrity. There will be three writing assignments: One news-oriented feature, one profile, and one work of criticism. In addition, students will write proposals for all story ideas and present oral pitches for them in class. Rewrites are expected. We will have several guest speakers, including performing artists, writers and editors.

New Media Newsroom
Instructors: Sig Gissler, Steve Isaacs, Duy Linh Tu, Russell Chun, Adam Glenn, Jennifer Preston
Please note this elective runs 12 weeks rather than 10.

New Media Newsroom for New Media Majors
Instructors: Duy Linh Tu, Jennifer Preston, Sig Gissler
Section 1: Mon., 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Section 2: Wed., 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
This course will introduce students to multimedia storytelling and newsroom work flow. Using a combination of original reporting as well as building on stories already done for RW1, students will work with several new media tools, including web page production; photography and image editing; audio and video editing; blogging; data analysis, etc. This course is an excellent opportunity for students to learn how newsrooms are evolving - combining the best of traditional reporting and editing with the latest new media storytelling techniques. Students will learn to efficiently and effectively apply the technical skills learned in the August training sessions to traditional reporting and writing.
NOTE: This course is mandatory for new media majors. Non-major students with comparable technical training will be considered.

New Media Newsroom for Non-New Media Majors
Instructors: Adam Glenn, Russell Chun, Steve Isaacs
Thurs., 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Designed for non-New Media concentrators, this new course will introduce students to the technical skills and techniques used in the modern online newsroom. Students will learn several new media tools, including web page production; photography and image editing; audio editing; blogging; data analysis, etc. Students will learn to efficiently and effectively apply these technical skills to traditional reporting and writing. No previous web experience is necessary for this course.

International Reporting
Instructor: Tom Kent
Thursday, 7 to 9 p.m.
This course is an introduction to the techniques and challenges of international reporting for online, print and broadcast media. Main themes include ethics, writing, reporting from dangerous areas, covering the military, career opportunities in the international reporting and ways to engage readers and viewers who may have a slim interest in international affairs. Students will be assigned readings, write three stories of varying length and critique media coverage of current international issues

Destination Out: Foreign Reporting Off the Beaten Path
Instructor: Howard French
Wed., 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Foreign correspondents enjoy an image as the most seasoned and trusted of reporters. This class will take a close look at what happens when reporters are thrust, most often by crisis or emergency, into coverage of places that receive at best only episodic attention from the world's media, focusing on examples drawn from Africa, Asia and Latin America.It will examine some of the pitfalls of fireman journalism, and of life at the end of a long string, working in places such as Africa and China that tend to be unfamiliar to reporters and their editors.
The aim of the course is nothing short of building the better reporter: people who can ramp up quickly, for sure, but also people who take seriously the need to study history, appreciate the nuances of culture and keep up their guard against cliché and conventional wisdom.
Students will be expected to participate in in-depth discussions of weekly readings on individual countries or crises aimed at raising their cultural awareness and appreciation for the use and misuse of history in journalism. Working foreign correspondents will be guests on occasion in the seminar. During the course of the semester, students will be required to write three papers, including two 1200 word criticisms of current foreign newspaper or magazine coverage and a longer, heavily reported essay on a foreign topic of the student's choice. For this project, students will be expected to interview nationals from the country of focus in New York City.

Investigative Techniques
Instructor: Robert Port
Thurs., 2 to 4:30 p.m.
The role of the investigative reporter is as important as ever. Yet the techniques of the craft, invaluable to any journalist, are changing rapidly. This course will equip students with an array of skills - high-tech and old-fashioned shoe leather - applied to real-world subjects. Students will learn advanced applications of computer-assisted reporting, and will be able to find a variety of hidden documents useful to good journalism: court records, pollution and safety studies, campaign contributions, the filings of tax-exempt organizations, child abuse and industrial safety statistics, corporate records, etc.

News Editing
Instructor: Nancy Sharkey
Thurs., 5 to 7 p.m.
A 10 week course explaining how editors try to ensure accuracy, fairness, clarity, precision and completeness while keeping an eye on tone and structure. Will also examine the detail work — spelling, punctuation, grammar, style — with an emphasis on how problems in those areas affect meaning and damage credibility. Portions of the course will deal with deciding what is news, and with aspects of presentation (headline writing, photo use). Participants will edit stories with an emphasis on reading critically, raising good questions and dealing with reporters in ways that should elicit positive changes in copy.

The Art of the Rewrite
Instructor: TBA
Thursday; 7 to 9 p.m.
All good writing is rewriting. Yet too many journalists, faced with deadline pressure, neglect this critical part of the writing process. As a result, their copy never quite shines. In this class, we will delve into the the art of the revise, reworking pieces from earlier semesters and, where necessary, re-reporting them to make them of publishable quality. While publication is not the stated goal of this course, students will be encouraged to pitch their pieces to a wide variety of media outlets.

Opinion Writing
Instructor: Gwenda Blair
Mon., 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
This course will deal with the theory and practice of opinion journalism. We will consider the questions of how opinion journalism is affected by notions of objectivity, fairness, balance, neutrality and accuracy. We will also look at the ways in which a strongly stated point of view can shake up debate on an issue and change the general understanding about what constitutes an objective discussion of a subject. Most of all, we will examine the relationship between opinion writing and intended audience and the difference–or lack thereof–between "opinion" and "context"-at least for journalistic purposes. The course will explore how to shape an opinion on subjects as diverse as politics, cultural trends, foreign policy, and the arts — and how to express it. Each student will be expected to produce no more than three opinion pieces in different genres for different audiences at varying lengths. We'll read many of opinion writing's "greatest hits," including H.L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, Walter Lippmann, John Dewey, I. F. Stone, George Orwell and Lester Bangs. We will also read contemporary opinion writers, including some of the work of our occasional guest speakers, of whose work students will be encouraged to offer their own opinionated critiques.

Personal and Professional Style
Instructor: Judith Crist
Wed., 1:30 to 5:30 p.m.
Tues., 1:30 to 5:30 p.m.
The nature and demands of this course make it necessary to limit the class size. It is offered to students who have mastered the basic mechanics and techniques of journalistic prose and are interested in developing and refining a personal literary style within a journalistic framework, appropriate to editorials, columns and reviews. The emphasis is on form, structure and semantics for effective and original approaches to specialized writing in areas too long cliché-ridden. There are basic assignments and free-choice exercises, with concentration on self- and intra-group criticism. Prospective students must submit one sample of their best writing and, in no more than 350 words, a statement of their interest in the course. These are to be delivered directly to Assistant Dean Huff, who must receive them by 10 a.m., Monday, July 23. (This course is repeated, in expanded form, in the Spring.)

Business and Financial Reporting (I)
Instructor: Mike Miller
Monday, 6 to 9 p.m.
This course is an introduction to the basic concepts and tools of business reporting, designed for students interested in the field as well as those planning to specialize in other areas. The dynamics of business are at the heart of most journalistic subjects--from politics to culture to sports to foreign affairs--so learning how to make sense of business news and bring it to life are invaluable skills for all journalists.
We will study these subjects both through readings, by following and discussing news stories throughout the semester, and by analyzing classic business articles. Our discussion will focus on the different lenses through which business stories can be viewed: people, places, processes (eg how to create a new fast-food product made from Fritos),and numbers (how do they get manipulated, when is it illegal, how does the public find out). Three short features will be assigned, as well as in-class writing exercises. We will cover effective methods for conceiving and pitching stories, identifying and interviewing sources, story structure, and writing. Several class sessions will feature guest speakers from major business and general-interest publications.

Business and Financial Reporting (II)
Instructor: Cheryl Strauss-Einhorn
Thursday, 7 to 9 p.m.
Show me the money! That's what students will learn to do for readers in this Business and Economic Journalism course designed to teach how to generate, research, report, write and edit cogent business stories. Learn how to use numbers effectively and sparingly to explain how business impacts peoples' daily lives. Gain an understanding and appreciation for how publicly traded and privately held companies are structured, how and where reporters may find the documents to learn how the companies are doing and how such 'bottoms up' data provides clues to the health of the overall economy. We will examine the stock and bonds markets, some aspects of personal finance and major economic trends that journalists can expect to cover.

Covering National Politics
Instructor: Thomas Edsall
Thurs., 4 to 6:30 p.m.
The Covering National Politics class will focus on politics and policy-making, with as much coverage of the 2008 elections as possible. This course is best suited to those with a strong interest in government and elections. We will explore the role of racial and culture war issues that have worked successfully for the Republican Party in the past, and try to determine the most important factors in the contest between Barack Obama and John McCain. Guest lecturers will include reporters and operatives from both major parties. If possible financially and logistically, we will travel over a weekend to Pennsylvania, New Hampshire or a nearby battleground state.

Covering New York Politics
Instructor: Wayne Barrett
Tuesday, 7 to 9 p.m.
Covering New York Politics prepares students to report and write news and feature stories about legislative, congressional and municipal offices, using New York's 2008 and 2009 elections as a laboratory. The November election gives Democrats the greatest opportunity since 1966 to regain control of the New York State Senate, and students will cover hotly contested senate races in the city and suburbs. In addition, some of the candidates vying to succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2009 will visit the class and become the subjects of class coverage. Races for other city posts—from comptroller to council—will also be examined. Every student will become an expert on one race or candidate, probing donors, vendors, bundlers, associated lobbyists as well as major issues such as campaign tactics and funding of neighborhood support groups. Class guests will include reporters who cover campaigns as well as those who oversee lobbyist and campaign finance systems. Students will be encouraged to post copy on two city newspaper Web sites. In addition to blogs and short news pieces, every student will produce a feature-length story on the race or candidate they select for individual focus and will share their findings with the class.

Creating the Modern Critical Essay (offered in conjunction with the School of the Arts)
Instructor: Michael Janeway
Wed., 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Modern criticism was shaped, and is still influenced, by writers and artists working as journalists and essayists in the years of cultural earthquake from the Victorian era through World War II. They include Mathew Arnold, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Henry Adams, H. L. Mencken, Walter Lippmann, Virginia Woolf, and Edmund Wilson.

Some, such as Arnold, Wilde and Mencken, were poised between a celebration of the classics, and a recognition of the future. Others, such as Twain, Adams and Lippmann, were concerned with distinguishing between fact and myth. Shaw, Woolf and Wilson were more clearly heralds of change. They brought news of artistic, cultural and political shifts to a public unready for the revolutions in the sciences (including the study of the mind), technology, philosophy, governance and war that marked the culture of modernity in the first half of the 20th Century. Those who were themselves poets, playwrights, novelists (Wilde, Shaw, Twain, Woolf, and later Robert Graves, Scott Fitzgerald and James Agee) were experimenting in new forms both as artists, and as critics. Many are read today because their response to contemporary crises -- the shocking impact of mechanized warfare, the frailty of democracy in the face of charismatic totalitarian ideologies – was more insightful than that of historians and political commentators of the time.

Much can be learned in our own cultural context by exploring how these writers sought – and sometimes fought – to interpret modernity in journalistic and essay form. This course examines ways that beginning writers can learn the techniques of the critical arts by studying their origins. Film clips and photos depicting events and artists discussed in the readings (including Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, World War I trench warfare, the rise of Communism and Fascism, Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway) are offered for background on a Columbia website reserved for students in the course.

Assignments: two 1,000-word exercises, one 1,500-word paper, one 2,000-word paper. The final paper will ask students to undertake independent reporting or research.

Note: Students who wish to apply for one of the 9 Writing Division places in this 18- student interdepartmental course offered jointly in Journalism and the School of the Arts Writing Division should submit a one-page sample of their critical writing to Professor Janeway at mj153@columbia.edu.

Environmental Reporting
Instructor: Jocelyn Zuckerman
Wed. 7 to 9 p.m.
Covering the environment is an increasingly complex and important beat. Through extensive readings, visits with working journalists and scientists, and their own reporting and writing assignments, students taking this class will become familiar with some of the major environmental stories of the day. These will range from the specific concerns of individual communities about clean air and water to national issues—how to balance economic development with the preservation of species and ecosystems, how to wrestle with energy policy, environmental racism and more—to international conflicts over climate change, access to water resources, exploitation of the oceans and many other examples.
Students will also become knowledgeable about the legislation that governs this beat, the complexities of risk assessment and the key challenge of striking a responsible balance by finding sources other than those on the fringe, which can muddy the issues badly.

Social Impact of Mass Media
Instructor: Andie Tucher
Wed. 4 to 6 p.m.
In this course we explore the social consequences of what journalists do and the complex relationships between the press and the public. Through readings, class discussions, and close observations of media past and present, we locate the work of journalism in its social, historical, and theoretical context, focusing on such topics as the media's obligation to society; relationships between the press and the theory and practice of democracy; the media and storytelling; social ramifications of new technologies and new economic structures; and how the media are implicated in our perceptions of time, space, memory, and identity.

Transparency and Democracy: Accounting, Revealing, and Disclosing in Public Life
Instructor: Michael Schudson
Mon., 2 to 4 p.m.
This seminar focuses on changes in American culture in the past 50 years that have strengthened norms and practices favoring accountability in government (Freedom of Information Act, establishment of inspectors-general in executive departments, greater openness in Congressional deliberations); in other domains of professional life (informed consent in medical research, the legitimacy of second opinions in medical care); and in the media (greater openness in public talk about sex, sexuality, disease, death and dying). But with these changes, what happens to privacy? What happens to civility? What norms or values, if any, trump public candor? The seminar will focus on the U.S. case but "transparency" has become an important value in other countries, too, and in international relations (think of international election monitoring or international arms inspections). Term papers (ranging from 24 to 40-pages) may take up topics about transparency and democracy in any country or in transnational domains. It is designed for Ph.D. students. M.A. students may enroll with prior permission of the professor.

Techniques of Feature Writing (I)
Instructor: Dale Russakoff
Thursday, 5 to 7 p.m.
"Details -- that's where God lives." "Murder your darlings." "Good writing is rewriting." These are among many kernels of feature-writing wisdom we will examine as students learn to conceive, report and write features in their own voices. Any good feature begins and ends with dogged reporting and we will hear some exemplary writers talk about how they found and wrote their best stories. We'll read a range of long, medium and short-form features and come up with our own wisdom for developing leads, characters, scenes and other elements of powerful, memorable journalism. We'll also learn to find the music in subjects routinely avoided by feature writers (e.g. tax policy) and we'll explore the future of feature-writing in new media.

Techniques of Feature Writing (II)
Instructor: Paula Span
Saturday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

We will be reading, writing and rewriting the kinds of lively, engaging, informative-but-not-dreary stories that editors prize and readers remember. Learn to report with your senses. Incorporate characters, scenes and dialogue into your pieces. Streamline your prose or die in the attempt. Grapple with the Doctrine of Infinite perfectability. We meet on Saturday mornings, true, but we have a good time.

Writing With Style
Instructor: Kevin Coyne
Thurs., 7 to 9 p.m.
All prose, good and bad, has a fingerprint. You can usually tell within just a few lines who wrote it, and whether it’s worth reading. So where does a writer’s style come from, and how can you sharpen your own? By taking apart the work of other writers both fiction and nonfiction you will analyze the elements of a prose style in this class, and then apply these lessons to your own work. The idea here is not to learn how to mimic the voices of other writers, but how to develop your own. Among the writers we will be reading are George Orwell, Alice Munro, John McPhee, Tracy Kidder, James Joyce, Jane Kramer, Joan Didion and John Cheever. There will be three writing assignments of medium length: the first an account of a place or an event; the second a portrait of a person; the third an attempt to combine the two into a narrative.

Skills of the Journalist

1 credit per unit (These are 5-week mini-courses.)

Computer-Assisted Reporting
This course is designed to put student journalists in the driver's seat on the Information Highway. It takes students beyond simple lookups to a realm in which they not only capture information but also manage it to produce compelling daily, in-depth and investigative stories. Students will acquire skills in the staples of computer-assisted reporting - the spreadsheet and a database management program - while learning techniques to convert, merge, "interview" and interpret complex information from original or outside sources, such as the Internet or government CD-ROMs.

Writing, Reporting and Mixing for Radio
Students become familiar with radio news writing and reporting. Students write news reports using audio they gather as reporters in the field and produce them using the digital audio laboratory. Note: not open to full-time broadcast concentrators, who receive radio skills training in RWI.


New Media Skills for students who are not New Media concentrators:

• Basic New Media Skills: Students learn the basics of new media production, including software such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Flash. Students learn to build Web pages and slide shows and learn the basics of photo editing and graphic design.
• Advanced New Media Skills/Flash: Students learn the basics of producing multimedia and interactive projects with Flash, the industry standard authoring tool. Students learn how to translate their story ideas into integrated packages of text, photos, audio, video, and interactivity. We'll discuss how and when to use Flash, its pros and cons, and how it fits in with other online technologies. Students should be proficient on the Mac operating system and be familiar with Photoshop.
• Advanced New Media Skills/Video: Students learn the basics of video production. Students learn to shoot broadcast-quality video using high-definition cameras. Basic editing principles and concepts are taught using Final Cut Pro. Students should already be proficient on the Mac operating system and be comfortable using new software applications.

Students should not ballot for either of the advanced classes unless they are proficient with the elements covered in the basic class.

Photojournalism
Students learn the basics of photography, using Photoshop, scanners and printers to produce short photo essays on non-fiction topics.

Investigative Skills (Stabile Students Only)
This is a 10-week crash course on the tools that investigative journalists use for their research and reporting. The course will focus on the skills that watchdog journalists need: interviewing, document and database searching, data analysis, data visualization and computer-assisted reporting. It will also help students conceptualize investigative projects and run them through the process that journalists go through in the course of their investigations.

Other Fall Term Courses

These courses are not open to full-time M.S. students

The Literature of Non-Fiction 6 credit Seminar
Instructor: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Mon., 6:30 to 9 p.m.
This 15-week course is designed to expose students to the most influential and innovative nonfiction writers of the past and present. Starting with Samuel Johnson and W.E.B. DuBois and moving up to contemporary writers such as Susan Orlean and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, we will examine how nonfiction has evolved in its approach, subject matter, voice and style. Assignments: Two short, critical reviews of the reading matter. One long literary essay, of the type found in The New York Review of Books, that links some of the readings with original research and thought. The essay should concern a writer from the past and from the present and discuss the influences on and evolution of nonfiction. Course not open to new full-time students

TV Reporting and Writing 3 credits
Instructor: Lisa Cohen
Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This course is required of students in the part-time program who are concentrating in Broadcast journalism. This course covers the same materials that full-time students receive in their "jumbo" RWI sections, and prepares students for advanced courses in broadcast journalism. For part-time students only

Columbia News Service 3 credit elective
Instructor: David Blum
Tues., 6:30 to 9 p.m.
The Columbia News Service operates as a feature syndicate whose stories are thought up, reported and written by students under the guidance of faculty members. They are then distributed by the New York Times News Service for publication in some 400 daily newspapers throughout the United States and Canada. Topics concern anything of general interest happening in and around New York City. Subject matter can deal with the arts, entertainment, science, technology, health/fitness, sports, publishing, economics, fashion, ideas, travel, politics, academia, business, government–anything that would intrigue and inform a national audience. To see examples of what students produced last year, take a look at the CNS stories listed under Student Work on the school's website. Also check the clips posted opposite the elevator and in the hallway on the 6th floor. Along with receiving instruction and practice in how to report and write feature stories, students will learn how to develop ideas, present them to editors in acceptable fashion and deal professionally with editors as staff writers and freelancers. Students must turn out four stories of 750 to 1500 words each in the course of the semester, writing and rewriting them, working one-to-one with their own instructor, until their pieces reach publishable quality. Please note that enrollment in this course does not make you ineligible for the Spring 6 credit version of the class.

Advanced Seminar in Business Journalism 3 credits
Instructor: Terri Thompson
The Knight-Bagehot schedule for the fall will be Mondays (4 to 5:30 p.m. for seminars and 6 to 8 p.m. for dinners) and Tuesdays (4 to 5:30 p.m.)
For Knight-Bagehot Fellows in Business and Economic Journalism only

Internship 0.5 credit
A student who, with the prior approval of the Assistant Dean of Students and the Office of Career Services undertakes an internship at a media organization can earn 0.5 credit if the work consists of serious journalistic enterprise. At the conclusion of the internship, the student must submit a written description of what he or she has accomplished and learned, and an official of the media company must send a separate letter corroborating that and evaluating the student's performance. You do not request this class via the ballot. Please contact Assistant Dean of Students Melanie Huff or Career Services Director Ernest Sotomayor for details.