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Academics

M.S. Spring 2009 Curriculum

TO: All M.S. Students
FROM: Bill Grueskin, Dean of Academic Affairs
RE: M.S. Spring Curriculum

Here is the M.S. program of instruction for the spring 2009 term. Full-time M.S. students are required to take a 6-credit Reporting and Writing Seminar, a 6-credit Media Workshop, the Master’s Project and fulfill the requirement for a 3-credit journalism elective or an approved 3-credit graduate course outside the Journalism School. In addition, all full-time magazine concentrators will be automatically enrolled in the Delacorte Evening Lecture Series (one-half credit). Part-time M.S. students in the magazine concentration may elect to take the lecture series in spring 2009 or 2010. M.A. and Knight Bagehot students may ballot for M.S. electives, skills, and a special M.A./KB E&I Digital Media Course. Information will be circulated shortly.

You should read this material thoroughly and, after discussing options with your advisers and with instructors, rank your preferences on the online ballot (available as of 7 a.m. on Nov. 26, from the Dean of Students Blog.

Enrollment in classes may be subject to the consent of instructors; enrollments of many courses are limited. As a result, some of you may be assigned to classes that are not among your top three picks. This is done as fairly and equitably as possible. If circumstances warrant, it may be possible to add an additional section for certain classes, with different instructors. However, we cannot guarantee that we will add sections to any course, no matter the demand.

The curriculum reflects the best judgment of the faculty and administration; it isn’t a popularity contest. We reserve the right to add, delete or move courses (though we try to keep this to a minimum); occasionally we have to change instructors if schedule conflicts become intractable.

Student evaluations of courses in previous years are also available to view online

The online ballot will be activated at 7 a.m. on Nov. 26. Your completed ballot must be submitted online no later than 7 a.m. on Dec. 3. All ballots received during this time will be considered equal – this is not a first-come, first-served process.

The Journalism School’s spring semester begins Tuesday, Jan. 20, when the first draft of Master’s Projects must be submitted to your adviser by 10 a.m. Students completing radio or new-media projects should consult with their advisers regarding the format of the first draft. Deadlines for subsequent master’s drafts have been set for 10 a.m. on Feb. 23 and March 23. You will receive detailed instructions as those dates grow closer.

Please note: Wednesday, Jan. 21, is Spring Prep Day, a full day of mandatory talks, workshops and panels for full-time M.S. students; all other students are welcome. Workshops begin Thursday, Jan. 22, or Friday, Jan. 23. Seminars begin Monday, Jan. 26, or Tuesday, Jan. 27. Journalism School electives start Wednesday, Jan. 28.

Classes taught elsewhere in the University begin the week of Jan. 19 (except for Law & Business School courses, which may begin earlier). Be sure to check with your instructors for exact dates and times.

Required courses for full-time students:

1. Advanced Reporting and Writing Seminars (J6002y), 6 credits
2. Media Workshops (J6011y), 6 credits
3. Master’s Project II (J6041y), 3 credits [except for FT video Master's Project students]
4. Spring Term Electives (J6010y), 3 credits
5. Skills (J6102y), 1 credit

Don't forget to take a look at the Newly Approved Spring 2009 Courses.

How a Week Looks in the Spring:

  • Monday and Tuesday: Reporting and Writing Seminars
  • Wednesday: Most Electives and time for Master’s Projects
  • Thursday and Friday: Most Workshops
  • Saturday and Sunday: Some Electives and Workshops

Note: Many courses require special class meetings (field trips, editorial meetings, etc.) in addition to the listed class time. All students, particularly those in the part-time program, should check with the faculty to ascertain if their course has such additional requirements. Many faculty members have posted these on the school web site, linked to their name on the faculty page or to the course description in this document.

Advanced Reporting & Writing Seminars
J6002y (6 credits)
The disciplines of reporting and writing are structured around specialized subject areas or style techniques. These seminars usually require two full days each week on Monday and Tuesday - you should carefully check the schedule of each course by consulting the faculty or their class schedules posted on the web site.

They are listed below with the instructors (see later pages for full course descriptions). Because accommodating all first choices is unlikely, students must indicate six choices. In filling out the ballots, students should list specific seminars in order of their preferences.

Note: Admission to some seminars requires the instructor’s approval in advance (see course descriptions below). If you have been selected by Sam Freedman, Ari Goldman, or June Cross, you will be asked to indicate so on your ballot. These classes will be filled prior to the ballot, so if you have not been pre-selected by the professor, you will not be able to submit a ballot requesting those classes.

All professors are allowed to select 10 of the students who ballot for their class as a first choice; the remaining seats are filled by the Dean of Students office in a manner that is intended to equalize students’ success in getting at least some of their first-choice classes.

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The Seminars (J6002y):

Media Workshops
J6011y (6 credits)
Media workshops include a number of options: broadcast (TV — Nightly News, Video Storytelling and Radio), newspaper (Bronx Beat, Brooklyn Ink 2.0, and Columbia News Service), magazine (Producing a Magazine, Literary Journalism) and Digital Media (Digital Media/Multimedia, Digital Media/Interactive, and Bronx Beat Digital Media). Students devote at least two days each week, usually Thursday and Friday, to the workshop.

Note: schedules vary widely, so you should check with the faculty member for details or his/her posting on the Web site.

All professors allowed to select 10 of the students who ballot for their class as a first choice; the remaining seats are filled by the Dean of Students office in a manner that is intended to equalize students’ success in getting at least some of their first-choice classes.
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The Workshops (J6011y):

Master's Project II
J6041y (3 credits) — a continuation of Journalism J6040x

Master’s Project Deadlines:

  • Jan. 20: First draft of all Master’s Projects (for audio projects, the “work cut”) will be handed in to your adviser by 10 a.m.
  • Feb. 23: Second draft of all Projects will be handed in to your adviser by 10 a.m.
  • Mar. 23: Final versions of all Projects handed to the DOS Office, in Room 207, by 10 a.m. No changes are allowed after this deadline. This copy is ultimately filed in the library.
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Note: These deadlines are strict and must be met. Your adviser may require additional deadlines and drafts.

Spring Term Electives
J6014y [primarily] (3 credits)
All full-time M.S. students are required to take an elective for at least three credits at the graduate level in the spring term — either inside or outside the school. Most Journalism electives meet once a week for lectures and/or seminar discussions, and require reading as well as written assignments. Outside electives must be approved by the Dean of Students office. Please note that Personal & Professional Style and Creating the Modern Critical Essay both have applications due by Nov. 17. Students accepted into those classes will be notified in advance of balloting.

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For outside course information, please see: M.S. & M.A. Cross-Registration page.

The Electives (primarily J6014y):

Delacorte Evening Lecture Series
J6050y (1/2 credit)
Thursday 7:30 p.m. - 9 p.m.
FT magazine concentrators are automatically enrolled in the Delacorte Magazine Lectures, to be offered Thursday evenings 7:30-9 p.m. All other students are invited to attend. Part-time students concentrating in magazine may elect to take the Lecture Series in spring 2009 or 2010.

Internship
J6099y (1/2 credit, optional)
Internships must be pre-approved by the Office of Career Services and the Dean of Students office. A student who undertakes an internship at a media organization can earn an additional academic one-half 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 in the internship, and an official of the media company must send a separate letter corroborating that and evaluating the student’s performance.

Course Descriptions
Following are descriptions of the reporting/writing Seminars, the media Workshops, the Elective courses, and skills classes. You may request a syllabus from the professors, or consult those posted on the school Web site. For outside courses, please see the M.S. & M.A. Cross-Registration page.

If a course fails to attract a sufficient number of students, the Dean reserves the right to cancel it. All course changes are subject to the approval of the Dean Grueskin's office.

The Seminars
J6002y (6 credits)
Please note: full-time students are expected to devote all day Monday and Tuesday to working on their Seminar. The times listed below indicate only the group meetings of these courses.

Beyond Borders
Mirta Ojito
Tuesday, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

With the U.S. election behind us, two ongoing wars and the economy in a downward spiral, the immigration theme seems to have been put on the back burner, but it won’t stay there for long. Global movement –how to stimulate it and how to harness it- is the topic of the 21st century. There are few issues in the world today that are as crucial and defining as how to deal with the flow of immigrants leaving poor countries and making their way to wealthier countries in the north. Even the war against terrorism, which since 9/11 has become an international obsession, has been framed as an immigration challenge: who comes in; who stays out (one of Osama bin Laden’s sons was refused asylum in Madrid, Spain in early November).

The relentless flow of immigrants impacts the languages we speak (consider the debate over bilingual education and the quiet acceptance in major cities, such as New York, of the predominance of Spanish); the foods we eat (again, look around your own neighborhoods); the people we hire; the bosses we work for; and even the music we dance to. In a grander scale, immigrants impact foreign policy, the debate over homeland security, local and national politics, budget allocations, the job market, schools, and police work. No institution can ignore the role immigrants now play in shaping the daily life in most industrialized countries of the world. Indeed, in the United States, immigration is at the heart of this country’s narrative and sense of identity. And yet, we continue to be conflicted by it: armed vigilantes patrol the Rio Grande while undocumented workers find jobs every day watching over our children or delivering food to our door.

In this class you’ll become familiar with key concepts every reporter in the 21st century needs to master to expertly cover any beat in New York or elsewhere in the country, even abroad –from immigration terms to the way the U.S. remains torn over who gets to claim a piece of the pie and who doesn’t. You’ll learn how countries all over the world struggle with their own evolving identify and values in an age of porous borders, the Internet and cheaper, faster mobility You’ll begin writing about immigration with a wide perspective, an international scope and a firm grasp of the issues. You’ll come to see immigrants, not as passive recipients of policies and procedures but as principal actors in the weaving of the American quilt. You’ll look beyond the statistics to uncover not only the sometimes painful process of adaptation and the struggles to belong but also the joys and triumphs in the lives of immigrants everywhere. You’ll acquire greater skills in reporting and analyzing the issues that have defined America as a country of immigrants. And you’ll come to see immigration as a reporter should: with empathy but with open eyes.

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Book Writing
Sam Freedman
Tuesday, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (Note: Application class)

This seminar teaches students to prepare a book proposal, including an overview essay and a sample chapter, both at least 4,000 words long. Each student must enter the class with either sufficient material from elsewhere or an idea that can be researched in the New York area. Students will not be permitted to use their Master’s Project for this seminar. Coursework ranges from intensive study of literary non-fiction and journalistic fiction, with related writing assignments on a weekly basis, to instruction in the techniques of reporting and writing extended narrative, and of producing a book proposal. Guest speakers from the publishing industry appear frequently. Enrollment limited, with approval of instructor. Please contact Prof. Sam Freedman ASAP to apply.

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Biz and Eco Reporting A
Tom Herman
Monday, 6:30 – 9 p.m.

This course will provide students with the tools for reporting about business and the economy, ranging from how to profile companies to how to analyze significant economic trends. The course will go beyond the basics of business reporting, though, to help students understand that real people are making decisions in business and real people are affected by those decisions. In that light, the current economic crisis will provide a framework for researching, writing and rewriting stories that require strong reporting, narrative flow and pinpoint accuracy.

Students will be asked to read current and historic business stories, with an eye toward understanding what makes certain articles transcend the industry or sector they examine. 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.

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Biz and Eco Reporting B
Dave Kansas
Monday, 6:30 – 9 p.m.

This course will provide students with the tools for reporting about business and the economy, ranging from how to profile companies to how to analyze significant economic trends. The course will go beyond the basics of business reporting, though, to help students understand that real people are making decisions in business and real people are affected by those decisions. In that light, the current economic crisis will provide a framework for researching, writing and rewriting stories that require strong reporting, narrative flow and pinpoint accuracy.

Students will be asked to read current and historic business stories, with an eye toward understanding what makes certain articles transcend the industry or sector they examine. 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.

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China Seminar
Howard French
Tuesday, 7:30 – 9:30 p.m.

This course aims to deepen students' understanding of China and sharpen the ways we think and write about the country as journalists. The class involves intensive and eclectic reading about China, including works of reportage, political science, history and literature. It also requires that students read current coverage of China from a variety of important Western and (in translation) Chinese media. A portion of each class will be set aside for a running comparative examination of this coverage. Written assignments will include both critical assessments of current coverage and student-reported analysis of current events.

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Covering Education
LynNell Hancock
Monday, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Students interested in working on the News21 Summer project will be selected from this seminar. Culture, crime, politics, money, immigration, environment, the art and science of learning—these are all the prime elements of the education reporter. Students should emerge from this course with the ability to infuse life and clarity into this complex beat, connecting the dots between policy and people, history and culture, reading scores and real kids’ lives. The course is designed to offer students a foundation for making sense of it all. This year a focus will include the business, the diversity, the life and times of charter schools. Select students may have the opportunity to report in New Orleans and the Appalachia. Another unique feature is the chance to intern and report in one New York City public school for the duration of the semester. Choices have been expanded this year to include the Frank Sinatra High School for the Performing Arts for those students interested in exploring culture and youth, and a new journalism junior high in Queens. Other schools include a high school for new immigrant teens, and a troubled high school in East New York slated for extinction in three years. Seminar is devoted to the ethical and statistical tools of the reporter, and the history and issues facing public education. Student work ranging from narrative and investigative features, to news shorts and classroom blogs, will be published in our online magazine. Course web site: www.coveringeducation.org

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Covering Religion
Ari Goldman
Monday, 9:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Note: Application class)

A special requirement of the course is an early deadline for the Master’s Project. Since the study tour to Ireland occurs during Spring Break, Projects must be submitted to the Dean’s Office prior to our departure. (This requirement does not apply part-time students not currently enrolled in the Master’s Project.)

“Covering Religion” prepares journalists to write about religion for a secular audience. The course looks at major religions today through case studies of how religion is evolving in different parts of the world. This year the focus will be on Ireland. During the first seven weeks of the course, the class will report on all religions that are found both in New York and in Ireland. Each student is required to become the class expert on a specific faith or denomination, writing articles and sharing what he or she has learned with the class. The class also includes mandatory field trips to mosques, temples and churches in New York. During the spring break, the class takes a 12-day study tour of Ireland. (There is no cost to students for the study tour, which is fully subsidized by a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation.) During the study tour, the class maintains a web site where regular news and features reports are posted (www.coveringreligion.org). Special Requirements: Full time students must complete and submit their Master’s Project before spring break commences. Admission to the class is by application. For details, see the DOS blog.

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Documentary Seminar
June Cross
Monday, 3 – 8 p.m.

The documentary seminar will explore the history and critique aesthetics of the genre; examine reportorial methods, and provide students an opportunity to learn storycraft and structural analysis. Course participants will be exposed to the rudiments of production management, including budgeting and contracts, and they will study the crafts of cinematography and editing in the service of long-form storytelling. Working in rotating teams throughout the semester, students will work on short exercises and workshop a 5 to 7-minute trailer along with an accompanying one-pager that they will pitch to a team of commissioning editors as the course ends in May.

Print students and others may be admitted by application to the instructor. These applications are due Nov. 17.

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International Newsroom
Ann Cooper
Monday, 3 – 6 p.m.

What is news? And how is it reported? The answers change as you cross borders and cultures, and in this course we will compare the differences by analyzing news coverage around the globe.

The course will cover three major areas:

Global news. Students will monitor news Web sites around the world, and guest speakers, including foreign editors and foreign correspondents, will help us analyze the coverage. We will also meet several journalists from other countries, who will discuss geography, culture, media ownership, ethics, and other influences that affect their work in defining and reporting the news.

Press freedom. We’ll look at the origins of the concept of free expression as a basic human right. Tracing that idea up to the present, we will examine the techniques used in dozens of countries to repress independent reporting and critical opinion.

International reporting. Students will develop analytical and reporting skills in covering international news. We will discuss sources and techniques for reporting everything from diplomacy at the United Nations to war in Iraq. Guests will discuss careers in international reporting and how to freelance international stories. We will also examine some innovative approaches to international reporting, such as Swarthmore College’s War News Radio project and Yahoo’s In the Hot Zone site.

Students will develop their own story ideas on international issues, based on readings and discussions. Assignments for this class can be written for print, radio, or television. We will also discuss the possibility of a multimedia class project on one international issue. In Spring 2006, The International Newsroom class produced a multimedia Web site on issues relating to the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. Visit www.resolutionseven.com/iraq/. In 2008, the class created Global Press Watch, a site devoted to international media news, press freedom, and foreign correspondence. Visit http://internationalnewsroom.wordpress.com/.

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Investigative Project (non-Stabile)
Walt Bogdanich
Tuesday, 5 – 8 p.m.

The mission, methods and history of investigative reporting, as seen in part through a semester-long project examining a single subject. The goal will be to break news exploring the underside of an overarching state or municipal issue and to expose in engaging detail “the effort required,” as Lincoln Steffens put it, “to make the world go wrong.” The class will include a mix of investigative lecturers–from reporters to law enforcement agents to private investigators–as well as government officials and other experts on the project theme.

The subjects of investigative stories will also discuss how reporters are handled at the receiving end. The purpose of the class will be to acquire investigative skills by using them in a team approach designed to have an impact on one of the city’s great, under-explored, issues.

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Journalism of Tomorrow
Stephen Isaacs
Tuesday, 6 – 9 p.m.

The only constant in journalism has become change. This seminar will examine in some depth how journalism and its practitioners are morphing into forms seemingly unrecognizable under historic definitions. From Day 1 of the seminar, students will “zero base” accepted thinking about journalism, such as whether it will exist in the future world.

Students will explore how new global forces and the speed of technological invention are affecting all aspects of societies, from politics to economics to cultures to ethics to morals and in reverse, and how those forces affect media and how media reflect them and affect them.

Each week, students will assess the current and likely impact of current and possible developments.

The first week will concentrate on the development of media by focusing on the origins of media by using Paul Starr’s provocative work, The Creation of the Media, as a touchstone. From there, week by week, the class will examine various political and social aspects of new and possible developments. One week, for example, students will focus on blogs, and whether blogging is a 10-second phenomenon, as many regard it, or the harbinger of a major political and journalistic revolution, using the book Blog by Hugh Hewitt as a starting place. Another week might concentrate on the whole subject of citizen involvement, taking off from Bowling Alone, the sociological staple Robert D. Putnam, and Dan Gillmor’s We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. In yet another week, we will examine the social and political phenomenon of information overload, using Todd Gitlin’s Media Unlimited as a guide. In as many cases as possible, we will invite the authors of these works to join in our discussions.

Students will write an essay every other week on one of the two topics covered in that two-week period. The minimum length will be 1,500 words.

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National Affairs Reporting A
John Martin
Tuesday, 6:30 – 9:30 p.m.

This course is designed to enhance the reporter’s ability to explore stories that touch on the fractures in American society between the educated and the unschooled, between the government and the citizen, and between social and economic classes. It examines four areas: Technology, Workplace, Crime, and National Security. It seeks to penetrate myths and report realities behind the following topics: The Digital Revolution: Divisive or Liberating? American Labor: Dead or Alive? Wrongful Convictions: The Search for Certainty, and the National Security State: America’s Wartime Atmosphere. Guest speakers will stimulate discussion and offer leads on sources and lines of inquiry. The course requires four reports of 1,000 to 1,200 words (over 15 weeks) to demonstrate reporting results and story telling abilities. Each story appears in Fault Lines, a digest of reporting, and is posted at Faultlines.com.

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National Affairs Reporting B
Dick Wald
Tuesday, 7 – 10 p.m.

The class will act as the New York Bureau of a national publication. We will explore what makes a report “national” through a three-hour meeting every Tuesday night, examination of major publications and discussions with invited reporters and editors who are in the business every day. There will be two field trips, one to Washington (a visit), one to Albany (you work). There will be regular writing assignments and in the final five sessions we will concentrate on secrecy in government and how it affects the press. We will be joined for these sessions by David Westin, president of ABC News, and specially invited guests. Reading: everything you can get your hands on. You have to know what is in the news, generate your own stories and be prepared to defend them. Won Ton soup served on last day of class.

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Reinventing Television News
David Klatell
Tuesday, 2 – 5 p.m.

There is little doubt that television news and public affairs programming is facing a series of immense obstacles: declining ratings, a plunge in advertising revenue, the loss of most young viewers, competition from the Web, social and viral networking, and citizen-produced video, just to name a few. At least some observers look to PBS stations as an alternative source of intelligent, engaging programming – and as perhaps the last, best hope for thoughtful journalism on broadcast/Web television. Yet, PBS stations face their own serious challenges in filling that role: most lack a news department, do not produce regularly scheduled non-fiction programs popular in their local market, and their older, better-educated audiences and donors are less Web-friendly than the general population.

Each spring, this seminar takes as its “client” one major station or network, and acts as a hothouse of ideas for the management of that client; we attempt to develop real-world, i business and programming strategies, including innovations in content, delivery system and financial support that can be put into practice. This spring, WNET-TV (Thirteen) and WLIV (Ch. 21) will be our clients, and we will spend the semester working with top management of these New York-based PBS stations. Neal Shapiro, President of Thirteen, will teach the course with me.

Students interested in enrolling must have at least some knowledge of television programming, and be aware of the fundamental differences separating PBS stations’ business models from those of their commercial brethren. I am looking for students with some knowledge and interest in programming and strategic planning, as well as imaginative solutions to the challenge of creating Web and other interactive offerings that will develop, enlarge and diversify the stations’ audiences and impact on the community.

Students interested in enrolling should contact me for a short discussion prior to balloting for this class. You need not be a Broadcast concentrator.

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Science Reporting
Steve Hall
Tuesday, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

This course will instruct students on the art and craft of writing about science for a general audience. Students will learn how to extract information from the scientific literature, interview scientists, analyze the importance of newly reported research, report on scientific controversies, and unearth compelling human narratives from the mass of published scientific data. Particular emphasis will be placed on the importance of critical thinking in assessing and characterizing new scientific developments. In addition, there will be a significant emphasis on developing the kind of prose skills that are essential for the unique burdens of science writing, which include explanatory journalism and translating the social implications of technical information into the broader cultural idiom.

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Stabile Investigative Seminar
Sheila Coronel
Tuesday, 5 – 8:30 p.m.

Investigative reporting, like most genres of journalism, is in a state of flux.

Technological and other changes in the media industry are transforming the narrative forms, the language and the techniques of investigative journalism. At the same time, the collapse of the business models that have traditionally supported muckraking in newspapers and TV networks has meant leaner investigative staffs and a reduction in resources devoted to in-depth reporting. Meanwhile, many news organizations are involving citizens in the investigative process.

While corruption, regulatory failure and scams on consumers remain the staple of investigations, other areas, including the environment, terrorism, natural disasters and global trade have become rich ground for journalistic probing. Cross-border issues – such as immigration, human and commodities smuggling, and the global supply chain – are also emerging as important topics for investigation.

The need for investigative reporting in a networked and interdependent world has never been more profound. The next generation of investigative journalists needs to be more technologically adept, more entrepreneurial, and also more global in their outlook.

This seminar will examine the tectonic shifts that are taking place in the media and challenge students to think about how they can produce and pitch investigative stories in such a dynamic environment. It will also familiarize them with the investigative tradition and the traditional investigative narrative forms. An examination of the ‘classics’ of the genre will be linked to a critical appreciation of how the genre has evolved in response to changes in technology, the audience and more broadly, society. The seminar will also focus on changing techniques of journalistic investigation and the continued innovation on those techniques. Group investigative projects undertaken during the course will give students the opportunity to try out these new techniques.

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Writing about the Arts
David Hajdu
Monday, 6 – 9 p.m.

The cultural reporter for a newspaper or magazine is required to draw on a wide knowledge of the arts, and to combine objective skills of description and investigation with the ability to muster a strong and well-argued opinion. This course will exercise all of these requirements through frequent writing assignments, and through close reading of model essays and articles. Students will receive detailed responses to their work from me and from the members of the class, and are expected to revise toward the goal of publication. An important part of the class will be the students’ critiques of one another’s work in weekly discussion.

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The Workshops
J6011y (6 credits)
Please note: full-time students are expected to devote all day Thursday and Friday to working on their Workshop. The times listed below indicate only the group meetings of these courses.

The Bronx Beat (Digital Media & Newspaper workshop)
Addie M. Rimmer, Executive Editor
Joe Cutbirth, Managing Editor
Rebecca Leung, Web Editor
Thursday, Friday 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
(Some Saturdays for key editors)

Do you want to jumpstart your journalism career? Do you need clips? Do you want to use your multimedia skills in a real-time newsroom setting? Join The Bronx Beat. In a new and exciting collaboration, The Bronx Beat print workshop is teaming up with a new workshop class of digital media concentrators. Come work for a professionally oriented news operation with name recognition, high standards and a yearning to grow. We are a student-written, student-run weekly print and online community newspaper covering the people, issues and news of the city’s most underreported borough. Assisted by an enthusiastic team of adjuncts, the staff produces about a dozen print editions and weekly online issues during the spring semester. Reporters cover topical beats such as business, education, sports, the environment, immigration, transportation, health, politics, lifestyle and geographical beats. This year we will greatly expand our online content, further emphasizing hyper local coverage.

This is a class for self-starting journalists. Two students are chosen to serve as the co-city editors for two consecutive issues. Student writers pitch print and multimedia stories and packages each week to these editors, who maintain a story budget, manage deadlines and steer the content of the paper. We also produce Web-only multimedia content. Other editing opportunities exist with photos, layout, the Web and the copy desk.

As a unified newsroom, print students will learn multimedia storytelling and digital media concentrators will build on their skills.

Working in rotating teams with professional editors, students copy edit and design the layout of the paper and the Web site on deadline. In addition to a circulation in the Bronx of 6,000 copies, The Bronx Beat is also widely circulated to the editors of the city’s weeklies and dailies.

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Brooklyn Ink 2.0
Michael Shapiro
Thursday, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.

This workshop continues the daily publication of the Brooklyn Ink www.thebrooklynink.com a website launched last fall, and enhanced this fall. The site covers Brooklyn and students are given considerable latitude in deciding how best to bring the borough alive for the site’s readers – several hundred log on daily, and the site has logged over 10,000 visits since its October re-launch.. While the site is built around reporting, students are encouraged to draw upon all the many different ways to tell their stories – narratives, slide shows, audio, video, graphics, and with their own blogs. The site is, by its design, a work-in-progress and experimentation is a priority. Students are also deeply involved in producing and marketing the site – though not commercially – to hone their entrepreneurial skills. Enrollment is open to students of all concentrations, but the number of students is limited.

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Columbia News Service
David Blum
Thursday, 6 – 8:30 p.m.
(Weekly editing sessions are held with adjuncts on either Thursday, Friday or Saturday)

The Columbia News Service operates as a feature syndicate whose stories are conceived, reported and written by students under the guidance of faculty members. Stories are displayed on the school’s web site and also 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; stories can deal with the arts, entertainment, science, technology, health/fitness, sports, publishing, economics, fashion, ideas, travel, politics, academia, business, government, and social trends —anything that has the possibility to intrigue and inform a national audience. To see the sorts of stories students produced last year, look at the CNS stories listed under Student Work on the school’s website. Along with 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 will report six stories of 800 to 1200 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.

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Literary Journalism
Helen Benedict
Thursday, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

This workshop combines writing and reporting with the study of excellent stylists, both journalists who have reached beyond conventional news style to render their writing as compelling and graceful as that of the best novelists (such as Ryszard Kapuscinski, John McPhee, Jane Kramer, Joan Didion, George Orwell), and novelists whose work encompasses journalism. (Leo Tolstoy, Emile Zola, Charles Dickens). Students read and analyze these writers, then do a few short writing exercises and one long article attempting to emulate the best stylists in the field. The idea is to practice the long-form style of journalism used in books and magazine articles. Students read and analyze works by these writers, their reporting techniques and style, then the students will do a few short writing exercises and one long article attempting to emulate the best stylists in the field. The idea is practice the long form journalism used in books and magazines such as Granta, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper?s, Doubletake, and literary journals.

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Magazine Writing A
John Bennet
Monday, 7 – 9 p.m.

Note: This is a Workshop, but it meets Monday evenings. Before signing up for this section, you must check to be certain there will be no schedule conflict with your Seminar. Your reporting days for this Workshop will be Thursday and Friday, with Monday and Tuesday reserved for working on your Seminar.

Why do so many journalists with secure jobs at daily newspapers secretly long for the supposed glamour, uncertainty, and financial precariousness of magazine work? Often, it’s because they think they’ll finally free themselves from the rigid conventions of newspaper syntax — newspaperese — and find their real voices as writers. What they usually discover is that magazine writing, too, has its conventions, and these can be, in their own way, just as restrictive and bewildering. In this course, we’ll quickly examine various genres–women’s magazines, men’s magazines, entertainment magazines, niche magazines, ideological magazines? in a session or two and then move on to our real subject: writing for substantive general-interest publications like Harper’s, The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times Magazine. We’ll discuss the types of proposals that appeal to editors, ways of getting in the door, and some useful frameworks for structuring longer magazine pieces. We’ll work on developing or refining a more natural and conversational writing style. In addition to weekly assignments involving the study of individual magazines and assigned readings, the student will produce a suitable magazine article of 2,500 to 3,000 words.

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Magazine Writing B
Stephen Fried
Thursday, 3 – 6 p.m.

A magazine story is not just a longer newspaper story. It requires an entirely different approach to story selection, to reporting and interviewing, to writing and re-writing, and to maintaining one’s journalistic mental health. This class will help you embrace those differences by giving you the tools to dig deeper into stories than you ever have before–as a reporter and a narrative writer. It will also explore how magazines work, how magazine projects come to be, how magazine writers and editors (and sources) survive the longform process, and how the market for longform non-fiction is mutating.

This workshop is best suited for students who already know they plan to pursue magazine and alt-weekly writing (or editing) for a career directly after J-school. It is also pretty rigorous, with writing, reporting and editing assignments pretty much every week. So, as my former students will tell you, this is not a workshop for dabblers or tourists.

In each weekly session we examine one aspect of magazine writing from a variety of perspectives, and analyze one current issue of a magazine. But our primary focus is on your work, to help you understand and explore magazine writing for yourself–in an intense, hands-on workshop setting where pretty much every word you write is not only edited by me, but by at least three of your classmates. Each student will develop five magazine story ideas, which will be workshopped until one executable story is chosen. (It’s never a bad idea to come to the first class with some ideas already at least half-baked.) At the same time you’ll work on a short profile to develop basic magazine writing skills. But the main enterprise of the workshop is an originally-reported (and endlessly re-reported) magazine piece of at least 3500 words, written (and re-written) with a handful of specific publications in mind. We finish the semester talking about how you might get the piece published–but, more important, how it might help you get a job at a magazine or alt-weekly so you can get paid to write more pieces.

Many have described this workshop as tantamount to doing a second masters. Some thought ultimately that was a good thing … others, not so much. But, for students truly interested in careers in long form narrative writing, it could be a challenge worth taking.

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Producing a Magazine A
Victor Navasky
Thursday, 3 – 6 p.m.

If you are interested in taking this course, please submit a letter with three article ideas by the end of the day on Tuesday, December 2, earlier if possible. (Either by e-mail to vic@thenation.com, or just slip it under the door of room 802.)

The students in this workshop will write, edit and participate in the design, production and promotion of the New York Review of Magazines. NYRM is a magazine about magazines. It consists of reporting, criticism and analysis of particular magazines, journals and periodicals, but it also covers people, trends, news and aspects of the magazine world in general. At our first class we will discuss whether this year’s issue should have a special focus.

In addition to writing full-length articles, short pieces and reviews, students will be responsible for editing, copy editing, fact checking, headlines, art and production tasks, and every other aspect of creating a magazine. From time to time the workshop will split up into subgroups.

Early in the process, we will also discuss assignments for a Business Prospectus and an NYRM Web site.

Each student in this workshop will be expected, at a minimum, to write one short item for the front of the magazine, one review for the back, and either a full-length article or its Web site or Business Prospectus equivalent. This expectation may be modified if a student is assigned other work, such as additional administrative responsibilities. Students will also write query letters, assignment letters and critiques of one another’s work (manuscript evaluations). Since the workshop will encompass story conferences, manuscript critiques, and exchanges with visiting editors, writers and artists, everyone is encouraged to participate, ask questions, speak up!

Although the workshop will meet regularly on Thursdays, students should also be prepared for occasional Friday sessions.

It is our goal (as distinguished from our commitment) that each student will get at least one byline in the New York Review of Magazines, as well as take responsibility for one or more editorial functions.

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Producing a Magazine B
Cyndi Stivers
Thursday, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

This workshop will produce a magazine about trends in digital content, exploring the strategies existing media companies are using to take their brands online as well as the rise of bloggers and citizen journalists. This is an area of acute interest to many of those who’ll be in a position to hire you when you graduate, and familiarity with these topics is a marketable skill. Students will be involved in all aspects of creating this magazine, both on paper and online. If you are interested in applying, please send a letter (no more than one page) introducing yourself and noting your eventual goals, plus three story ideas for the issue; also attach a list of websites you visit regularly. If you write or contribute to a blog or have experience building sites or Web pages, please specify.

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Digital Media A – Multimedia Production and Visual Storytelling
Duy Linh Tu & Carla Baranaukas
Thursday, 6 – 9 p.m. and most Fridays 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

The Multimedia Production & Visual Storytelling Workshop combines traditional reporting and writing skills with the best of multimedia journalism. Students will learn to report and create stories using multimedia software, hardware, and theory. The focus of the class is the NYC24 project — a Web magazine read in more than 75 countries. Workshop students will expand NYC24 and report and produce several stories over the course of the semester. The class meets in formal training sessions on Thursday evenings and, on many weeks, several hours on Friday. In addition, reporting will be required on a weekday or weekend day. Leading experts from the editorial and business sides of the media serve as guest speakers and provide feedback and direction for projects. Please see nyc24.com to see the work of previous classes. Priority for enrollment will be given first to digital media majors who have taken Digital Media Newsroom, followed by non-majors who have taken Digital Media Newsroom. If there are still open slots, other students will be considered.

Format: Students will work in teams of two to produce multimedia packages, including short-form video documentaries, slideshows, and interactive Flash packages — all based on solid reporting and writing. Students will publish five issues of NYC24 throughout the semester (including a major, multi-week final project), and each student will have the opportunity to serve on the editorial board of one of the issues.

Multimedia Skills Taught:

  • Pitching Story Ideas

  • Writing for the Web

  • Advanced Video Production

  • Advanced Video Editing Techniques (Final Cut Pro)

  • Information Architecture and Web Design

  • Interactive Flash Design and Production

  • Audio Production and Editing

  • Advanced Photoshop

Additional Skills Taught:

  • Brightcove Storymaker

  • Setting up a Podcast for iTunes Distribution

  • Various Web 2.0 technologies

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Digital Media B – Interactive Media Storytelling
Adam Glenn & Russell Chun
Thursday, 6 – 9 p.m., Friday as needed

The Interactive Storytelling Workshop combines traditional reporting and writing skills with the best of interactive digital media storytelling techniques. Students will learn to report and create stories using interactive software, hardware, and theory, with a focus on exploring non-traditional and innovative ways of presenting content. The class meets in formal training sessions on Thursday evenings and most Fridays. In addition, reporting will be required outside of class. Leading experts from the editorial and business sides of the media serve as guest speakers and provide feedback and direction for projects. Priority for enrollment will be given first to digital media majors who have taken Digital Media Newsroom, followed by non-majors who have taken Digital Media Newsroom. If there are still open slots, other students will be considered. This course assumes the incoming student has a working knowledge of digital audio, photo, and video capturing and editing, Dreamweaver and Flash, and web technologies such as Google maps, blogging, and basic HTML.

Format: Students will work in teams of two to produce media-rich packages, including (but not limited to) audio slideshows, infographics, timelines, quizzes, blogs, database mashups and Flash interactives -- all based on solid reporting and writing. Students will publish four issues of a webzine throughout the semester, and each student will have the opportunity to serve on the editorial board of one of the issues.

Interactive Media Skills Taught:

  • Developing & Pitching Web Story Ideas

  • Writing for the Web - The Fractured Narrative

  • Web Design and Usability

  • Mastering Interactive Graphic Tools

  • Using Flash for Interactive Design and Production

  • Advanced Flash

  • Using Database/Mapping Mashup Tools

  • Understanding Information Architecture and Data Design

  • Advanced Photoshop

Additional Skills Taught:

  • Using Blogging Software & Leveraging the Online Community

  • Setting up a Podcast

  • Various Web 2.0 technologies

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Nightly News
Rhoda Lipton
Thursday 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Friday 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.

Students will report, write, shoot and produce half-hour television news programs. Story lengths will vary from short hard news reports to in-depth “focus” stories, as well as series and profiles. All students will rotate through different jobs, which expose them to newsroom and studio operations. Editorial decision-making and production management are emphasized. Working under faculty supervision, students will design and implement program formats, write scripts, edit video, and anchor newscasts.

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Radio
John Dinges
Thursday, 5 – 7 p.m., Friday 9 a.m. – 7 p.m. (No pre-requisites)

Students will employ advanced radio writing and production techniques in a variety of radio formats to produce a weekly radio news magazine. The course will emphasize fully reported, radio news and magazine reports such as those featured most commonly on NPR programs. The class will function as a production team to produce a weekly radio news magazine, Uptown Radio, webcast live on the internet. Students will learn the full range of techniques of radio reporting, writing and on-air production, including newscasts, spot news, reports in the 3-4 minute range, creative commentary and longer narrative pieces using documentary methods. The course is intended to provide mastery of the most important skills needed in a high quality radio news organization. It is also designed to develop your writing skills (irrespective of media) by emphasizing descriptive writing, narrative and scene building techniques, and long-form documentary techniques. There are no technical or broadcast pre-requisites for this course and it is open to students from broadcast and print RW1 sections.

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Video Storytelling
Betsy West
Thursday Workshop all day; Seminar 6 – 9 p.m

This workshop will develop skills in narrative, non-fiction storytelling for visual media. Students will work in rotating teams of two to report and produce stories in a variety of styles and lengths suitable for broadcast, cable and digital media. Investigative reports, feature stories and profiles are encouraged, with the emphasis on substantive reporting and compelling storytelling.

Seminars will feature experienced producers and reporters from 60 Minutes, 20/20, CNBC’s documentary unit, Nightline, and PBS, as well as documentary directors and producers from independent production companies. Topics will include story structure, interview techniques, shooting, editing, graphics, legal issues and pitching your stories and yourself to media outlets. At the end of the semester, students will produce and direct a magazine-style program. Two editions of last year’s program, The Lens, are available for screening on columbiajournalist.org.

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The Electives
J6010y [primarily] (3 credits)
All courses below count for 3 academic credits. Students who wish to take a 6000-level-or-higher graduate elective offered elsewhere in the University that is given on a day other than Wednesdays may be able to work that in, but only with the prior agreement of the seminar and/or workshop instructor(s). Journalism students may audit courses or specific meetings of courses with the permission of the instructor(s). Please see http://snipurl.com/1tn6z for details.

Note: The school reserves the right to cancel any elective with fewer than 8 students enrolled.

Advanced Photojournalism
Sara Barrett
Wednesday, 9 – 11 a.m.

A course for aspiring photojournalists and for students who wish to include photography among their reportorial skills. Students will gain experience by shooting news and feature stories, and will develop individual photo essays. This class addresses both the technical aspects of photography and the practical and ethical issues faced by the working photojournalist. Visiting photographers and photo editors will show and critique work. Note: This course is open only to students who have completed “Photo Skills” or by permission on the instructor.

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Business & Economics Reporting
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn
Wednesday, 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
The economy is front and center in readers’ lives this year, and in this course, students will learn how to report, write and edit business stories that go to the heart of the current crisis. We will focus on how to use numbers effectively and sparingly to explain how business affect peoples’ daily lives. Students also will gain an understanding and appreciation for how publicly traded and privately held companies are structured, how and where they can 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 also examine the stock and bonds markets, some aspects of personal finance and major economic trends.

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Covering Conflict
Judith Matloff
Wednesday, 2:30 – 5:30 p.m.

Covering conflict poses unique challenges to reporters and is arguable the trickiest from an ethical point of view. Your reporting could get someone killed – including yourself. This course will cover all areas of coverage from moral minefields to logistics. The aim is to prepare you to work responsibly when faced with a barrage of propaganda and bullets. We will have tutorials on roadblock etiquette, satellite technology and interviewing traumatized victims. These skills are applicable at home, with disasters like Katrina. Each student will “adopt” a crisis and track it throughout the semester. Although there will be a practical component to the course, we will focus on how to deepen reportage with context and robust questioning. One assignment will prepare you to parachute into a strange country. Others will examine the implications of events. In addition, students will hone pitches for story ideas. Guest speakers will include prominent war correspondents and editors.

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Decision Making in the Newsroom
Michael Shapiro, Bill Grueskin & Peter Kann
Wednesday, (new time) 4:30 – 6:30 p.m.

The world in which you are about to work is changing so rapidly that no one can honestly tell you what the media industry will be like in three years, or five. But if you are going to succeed, you need to understand how decisions are made – decisions on what to cover and what to ignore, or what to discard and what to embrace, can no longer be the default decision that screams: “how did we cover it last year?”

People around you are going to be deciding whether to post the name of a famous athlete accused of sexual misconduct before they know his side of the story. Do you post it, hoping to be first with the story? Or do you wait and risk being beaten? So, too, will they be deciding whether a reporter covering a trial should also be blogging from the courtroom – adding a different, and perhaps opinionated voice to the neutral tone of her dispatches. Do you blog or say no?

And, of course, all of these decisions take place in the context of dramatic changes in our industry, as the companies that have traditionally invested in gathering news and profited from disseminating it aredoing less of both as subscriber and advertising bases shrink. We will look at the pitfalls and the opportunities the Internet affords in distribution of content, encouraging different kinds of reporting , and opening channels to new sources of information.

This class will confront many real-life issues, from the blurring of news and opinion to the impact of commercial agendas, in Decision Making in Journalism, a three-credit elective. The class will use both the “case-method” of instruction (managed by Prof. Shapiro) to take students through the step-by-step of decisions involving real journalists, as well as the more traditional approach (managed by Profs. Grueskin and Kann) that will include discussions, guest speakers and readings outside of class.

This class is not intended only for those who want to be in charge. It is, rather, for everyone who wants to feel a part of the sea change taking place across our field – and not merely onlookers to thinking that may be old, familiar, right or wrong.

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Feature Writing A
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Wednesday, 2 – 4 p.m.

We will devote the semester to reading, discussing, writing, editing and rewriting the kinds of lively, instructive feature stories that appear in the better newspapers, magazines and online publications. The reading and discussion will focus on understanding how exemplary published stories “work”; the writing will comprise original essays in various forms inspired by the readings and discussions; and the editing and rewriting will aim toward achieving professional standards.

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Feature Writing B
Paula Span
Wednesday, 6:30 – 9 p.m.

Learn to report and write (and rewrite) the kinds of lively, engaging stories found in the better newspapers, magazines and websites. Find compelling subjects; develop your ability to observe carefully and describe vividly; explore the challenges of structure. Streamline your prose or die in the attempt. The course involves extensive reading of fine stories old and new, learning to write proposals, producing three feature stories and then doing them again, better -- plus class discussions and individual conferences. And it honors the Doctrine of Infinite Perfectability.

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Graphics in the Newsroom
Hannah Fairfield Wallander
Wednesday, 7 – 9 p.m.

Information graphics are now a vital part of newspaper and magazine reporting. Readers are more visually savvy than ever before, and newsrooms are responding. Election coverage, national and international affairs, science, sports, and business news all depend on infographics to attract and inform readers. Reporters with experience in information graphics have an advantage when seeking jobs and pitching stories because they can offer story packages rather than words alone. A story with an excellent graphic will frequently edge out other stories for page one. This course will teach you, as reporters and editors, to approach a story as a visual journalist.

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History of Journalism
Andie Tucher
Wednesday, 1 – 3 p.m.

The cultural and social history of journalism in America. Drawing on interpretive readings as well as plentiful historical examples of print and broadcast journalism – from Tom Paine to Tom Wolfe, from the war correspondent to the “Sabbath gasbag,” from the tabloid to the documentary, from the muckraker to the blogger – we explore the development of the values, practices, ethical standards and social roles that cluster around the institution of journalism. Topics include changing ideas about what “news” is and what a “journalist” does; the impact of new technologies for gathering news; popular expectations about the duties and uses of the press; and the evolution of standards for what makes “good journalism.” We also consider how the press has itself been a significant actor (for better or worse) in war, reform movements, political exercises, criminal trials and other events.

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Journalism of Ideas
Alissa Quart
Wednesday, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Today, readers are particularly fascinated when journalists take hold of an idea that has risen up in the academy; think Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. These books treat ideas in a lively and clear way (though sometimes a bit superficially), combining social science, philosophy and journalism into a successful mix. The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times have all experimented with ways of expanding ideas coverage; columnists like David Brooks of The New York Times and Shankar Vedantam at The Washington Post routinely rummage through the world of social science to animate and give substance to their work.

In this class, we, too, will learn how write about ideas. We include studies and critical thought in our articles in an exciting fashion. We will craft news and feature stories added dimension and thoughtfulness: a profile of an innovative scholar or thinker; a piece about an ordinary thing-- dating, eating, boredom, clutter, indie rock—where we also explore a fresh, scholarly thought related to our chosen topic. In short, we'll figure out how to look under the surface of events and see larger cultural forces at work: "Journalism of Ideas" is a method, not a series of topics. It will serve students well no matter what they write about.

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Managing Broadcast Newsrooms in the Digital Age
David G. McCormick & Lloyd W. Siegel
Wednesday, 7 – 9 p.m.

This course will focus on the challenges and opportunities facing broadcast managers and reporters in the digital age: multiple platforms, rapidly changing technology, and an increasingly fractionalized audience and advertising market. It will address issues of newsroom organization, content development, budgeting, and standards in terms of a new multimedia 24-hour environment.

The objective is to develop a new model for television news, with revised procedures and policies to operate on the air, on cable, the Internet, and other digital platforms simultaneously in a creative and cost effective way. The course will include case studies, real world decision-making, and guest lecturers from broadcast and digital organizations.

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Narrative Writing
Kevin Coyne
Wednesday, 7 – 9 p.m.

All of the best stories in journalism, whether as short as a column or as long as a book, share the same basic narrative principles, and the aim of this course is to master those principles, to study them in the work of others, and to apply them to your own. The first few sessions are spent in an overview of the narrative form, discussing how to recognize, report, structure and write stories that move confidently through time, place and character. The remaining weeks proceed through a series of more specific technical issues using dialogue, choosing and depicting characters, compressing and expanding time, managing transitions, providing historical context, establishing a voice. Beyond the regular readings, the main requirement is to find one good story idea and then write it at three lengths (column, feature, magazine), gradually working your way deeper into the narrative form as the semester progresses.

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News Editing
Nancy Sharkey
Wednesday, 5 – 7 p.m.

Despite predictions of an Internet-wrought demise, newspaper editing survives. In fact, good editing prospers as information proliferates. Editors sort the fact from the fallacious. They shape the tone and choose the content of their publications. They collaborate with reporters to help reporters achieve their best work (or they should, anyway). This course will cover the art of editing, from shaping breaking news to gently handling features written with voice and style. It will look at relationships between reporters and editors. It will examine tough decisions of news judgment. And it will explore choices in organization and style. The course is intended not only for students considering a career in editing, but also for reporters who want to become better self-editors.

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Opinion Writing
Seth Lipsky
Wednesday, 5 – 7 p.m.

Opinion writing has never been more ubiquitous than now, but more is not always better. In this class, we will emphasize not only writing and editing – though there will be rigorous sessions – but also the more basic question of how to form an opinion.

This class is not for the faint-hearted; it requires significant reading, including background to some of the great editorial battles that have been played out in the American press. Writing assignments will include editorials, op-ed pieces, and blog posts. We will also pay close attention to the crucial role of reporting in the formation of opinions.

This year’s class will include several sessions devoted to how opinion is formed on the Internet. A comparison and contrast will be made between the world of blogging and the debate over ratification of the American Constitution, which ranged among scores of anonymous pamphleteers.

Guest speakers will include several leading bloggers, along with editorial and op-ed writers from mainstream publications.

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Personal & Professional Style
Judith Crist
Wednesday, 1:30 – 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 5 p.m., Monday, November 17.

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Politics & the Press in America
Evan Cornog
Wednesday, 4 – 6 p.m.

This course examines the press’s role in American politics from the eighteenth century to the present. Both “press” and “politics” are broadly defined. While parts of the course will look at newspaper coverage of political campaigns, the course will also consider the role of political pamphlets in bringing about the American Revolution, how reform groups (such as the abolitionists) have used the press to advance their agendas, and how efforts in various media–the cartoons of Thomas Nast, the radio broadcasts of F.D.R. and Father Coughlin, the Kennedy-Nixon TV debates–have altered American politics. Among the subjects the course will consider Thomas Jefferson and the press, muckraking, yellow journalism and the Spanish-American War, McCarthyism, Vietnam, and the modern political scandal from Watergate to the Starr Report.

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Radio Documentary
Alex Blumberg
Wednesday, 7 – 10 p.m.

Alex Blumberg, a producer on the public radio program This American Life, teaches the art and techniques of documentary radio journalism - interviewing, ambient sound collection, scene-setting, and narrative. Frequent guest lectures and discussions will focus on stylistic and ethical issues. The goal of this course if for students to develop the skills and sensibility for documentary storytelling.

Students will produce three radio projects: a one-voice story (4 to 5 minutes) a multiple voice story (4 to 5 minutes) and a final documentary (8 - 12 minutes.) Through frequent rewrites and intensive editing, these documentaries should be well-crafted and professional enough for broadcast.

Note: This course is open only to students who have completed “Radio Skills.”

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Reporting Advances of the Modern Newsroom
Tom Torok
Wednesday, 3 – 5 p.m.

Reporting Advances in the Modern Newsroom is designed to expose students to the latest techniques in acquiring, managing and interpreting electronic information and to acquaint students with presenting their work in various media, including online and print. The class will have two distinct components. One will be a weekly demonstration in which top working journalists from the region will demonstrate the latest techniques in handling electronic information, such as web scraping, optical character recognition, entity extraction, research methods, mapping and other visualizations, scripting, analytic tools and intelligent web presentations. The second weekly segment will be a lab in which students will gain hands-on experience with ways to manage electronic information -- through databases, spreadsheets, mapping programs and other programs – as well as ways to present information in a compelling fashion, such as through cloud tags, text trees and maps. Students will use current topical information or their own works in progress to create journalistic outputs with the techniques they’ve learned.

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Sports Journalism
Sandy Padwe
Wednesday, 6:15 – 8:45 p.m.

Sports occupies a special place in American society. Television props up its financial investment by giving sporting events–professional, college and high school–staggering blocks of time every day; many newspapers keep readers by devoting huge percentages of their daily newsholes to local, national and international coverage. Sports talk radio and countless internet sites dissect every play, every individual and every move, often adding to the stifling pressure on athletes, coaches, owners and administrators. Sport has evolved into a complex part of American life that requires thinking, well-trained, well-read and fundamentally sound journalists.

A sports journalist must be able to quickly and clearly tell readers and viewers what is happening on the field, on the court or on the track, and the modern sports journalist must have a solid background on issues as diverse as labor, medicine, performance enhancing drugs, stadium financing, race, Title IX, gender, masculinity, hip hop culture, youth sports–and the daily police blotter. A sports journalist must understand the fascinating history of this world as well as all the emerging trends and must continue the tradition of adding to some of the best writing, reporting and commentary in journalism. This course will address all of these matters with coverage of local professional and college games; feature pieces; columns, as well as longer, issue-oriented takeouts and investigative stories dictated by the news.

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Stabile Investigative Techniques
Bob Port
Monday, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.

This course will be integrally connected to the work the Stabile Investigative Students are doing in the Investigative Seminar with Professor Coronel.

The methods of the investigative reporter are changing, requiring a mix of high tech records research, old-fashioned shoe leather and sharp instinct for recognizing corruption, conflict of interest or hypocrisy. This course will equip students with that mix of skills. They will learn how to find and describe the residence of any person from computer records, how to document business affiliations, pinpoint useful material in complex lawsuits and extract investigative leads or evidence from government data kept on such subjects as terrorism, industrial safety, child abuse, tax-exempt charities, campaign contributors, corporate executives and convicted felons. Using court records, developing sources and record-keeping will be discussed. Skepticism, factual accuracy and teamwork will be stressed. The instructor will guide students through three investigative exercises and one final investigative project to be published in a local newspaper.

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Skills
J6102y (1 credit)
Each student must take at least one Journalism Skills 5-week mini-course while enrolled. Students may try to add an additional skills course; however, placement is not guaranteed. The “Skills” mini-courses cannot be used as a substitute for the electives.
Back to Required Courses

For a complete list of courses please see the Skills Spring 2009 Schedule.

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.

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

  • Basic Digital Media Skills: Students learn the basics of digital 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 Digital 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 Digital 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.