Core Courses
Jour71000 Craft of Journalism 6 credits
The foundation course for all students. Teaches the essential skills of researching, reporting and writing. Students will be assigned a neighborhood in New York and concentrate their reporting there for the semester. Students devote two days a week. The first day is spent in seminar and drill. The second day is spent reporting throughout New York. Frequent writing exercises and stories.
Jour71001 Legal and Ethical Issues 3 credits
Through a rigorous examination of court cases and ethical controversies, students will learn to anticipate, recognize, and properly address ethical and legal concerns in journalism.
Jour71003 Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism 3 credits
Students first assess how technology is changing journalism. They then learn the tools and techniques of interactive media. The goal: to learn the fundamentals of telling stories online using text, graphics, audio, video, and interactivity. Students will also use the tools of web logging and create their own blogs.
Jour71204 Broadcast News Writing and Production 3 credits
Broadcast students will learn to write news stories for radio and television in the five different formats used in broadcast news. Concentrated drills stress concise and conversational style for stories that run from 20 seconds to two minutes.
Jour72000 Craft of Journalism II 6 credits
Builds on the skills developed in Craft I. Stories will be longer and more analytic. Some will be features, profiles, or commentaries. Class meets for two full days. The first is in a small seminar: lectures, drills, critiques, and discussion. The second day is spent reporting in NY. Frequent writing exercises and story assignments.
Jour72201 Craft of Journalism II - Broadcast 6 credits
Broadcast students get practical experience through in-class exercises and field assignments using technology integral to broadcast news. Strong reporting, story telling, and production values are emphasized. Each student will produce spot, feature, and enterprise stories.
Media Courses
Jour72103 Feature Writing 3 credits
Students learn to report and write high-quality features for newspapers and magazines, emphasizing the art of story telling, human interest, and analysis. Assignments include profiles, criticism, and narrative writing in varying lengths from 1,000 to 2,500 words.
Jour73100 Editing 3 credits
Students learn the roles and skills of editors in print and online publications: selecting stories, shaping content, enforcing standards and promoting good writing. Classes use examples from the day's news to develop stories, editing them for clarity, tone, fairness and space. Students take the perspective of editors who must understand the big picture – the look, contribution and impact of their publications – while sweating the details of layout and copyediting.
Jour73101 Narrative Journalism 3 credits
Students will explore the art and craft of long-form storytelling, writing their own 6,000-8,000-word pieces. They will study the techniques of nonfiction masters, enhance their skills of research and analysis, and write polished magazine articles based on character, plot, scene and dialogue. The lessons of this course also will translate into other major projects ranging from book proposals to multimedia presentations.
Jour73102 Investigative Reporting 3 credits
This is an intensive capstone course that explores the advanced reporting, writing, organizational, analytical, and critical reasoning skills that are the foundation of investigative journalism for print and broadcast journalists. Using New York City as a laboratory, each student is assigned an investigative project. Some projects will require a team of two or three students. Every week students submit a detailed memo of progress. The goal: by the end of the semester each student or team will produce a 2,500 word investigative article or a 15-minute broadcast.
Jour73103 Opinion Writing 3 credits
Our democracy needs committed journalists who believe what they write can help their readers take a stand. Students will read and discuss editorials and columns, from the civil rights movement to the present, to discover what makes opinion writing effective. This is a writing-intensive class. We will write in an effort to open minds or change them about local, state, national, and international issues.
Jour73104 Journalism of Ideas 3 credits
We will examine how journalism covers the role ideas play in our society. We will study how both intellectual journals and mainstream media profile individuals, arguments, and events in ways that illuminate intellectual trends. Students will write short "ideas" pieces and longer profiles of people and events. Guests will include distinguished practitioners of the craft, whose work we will discuss in class.
Jour72304 Interactive Journalism II 3 credits
This course will emphasize individual and collaborative deadline reporting, writing and packaging for the Web. The course will also further examine the tools of new media. The classes will be structured to cover journalistic technique and issues, technology training and the review of students' work.
Jour73309 Interactive Journalism III 3 credits
Working individually, students are expected to produce an in-depth feature that will serve as their Interactive capstone. This piece will bring together all the appropriate skills and tools acquired over the previous semesters to create a multilayered and well-reported Interactive feature.
Jour73311 Entrepreneurial Journalism 3 credits
This course has students plan and develop interactive media journalism projects. The purpose is to prepare them to launch their own news products and businesses or develop such products for a media company, as they take a leadership role in reinvigorating journalism. The news project may involve reporting by professionals or citizens; it may involve packaging and editing; it may involve interactivity. Students will research the market need and competition. They will develop a compelling product description, draw up a simple business plan, assemble a prototype and present it to a jury of professionals.
Jour72205 Advanced Broadcast Production Workshop 3 credits
Students learn to use cameras and audio-recording equipment in fieldwork and post-production to create more effective stories. Students will also be introduced to TV studio operations and produce short newscasts.
Jour73200 Audio Podcasting 3 credits
This advanced level workshop focuses on creating and packaging news and information for "broadcast" and download via the internet. Students will rotate duties as producers, reporters, and editors on a professionally hosted and produced weekly news magazine called The NYPulse. Each student will also be responsible for producing several 10-15 minute audio webcasts.
Jour73201 Television News Magazine Production 3 credits
Students will work in teams to produce stories of approximately 10 minutes and create a monthly magazine-format show. They will develop their storytelling skills by identifying compelling central characters and their stories, connecting them to larger issues or common experiences. They will concentrate on in-depth reporting and interviewing techniques and be introduced to sophisticated writing and audio/visual approaches that sustain longer-form pieces. The finished product may qualify as a capstone project.
Jour72002 Journalistic Judgment 3 credits
To be taught by Dean Stephen Shepard. Journalism is all about making judgments — what stories to do, how to do them, who to call, what to leave out, how to be fair, what ground rules to set with sources, and so on. This course will examine many of those judgment calls that determine how well stories are done. Students will use contemporary examples from current media. They will absorb the lessons of good journalism and discuss the problems of the bad.
Jour73099 News Service Workshop 3 credits
Students who have demonstrated strong skills may work at least one day a week on a web-based news service run by the Graduate School of Journalism. They will serve as a corps of reporters, writers, and web page designers working closely with the news service's professional editors and faculty. Coverage will focus on NYC neighborhoods and will be made available for use by news organizations.
Jour72012 Internship 1 credit
For students who need academic credit for an optional part-time internship during their spring or final fall semester. The internship may take no more than 12 hours a week, with some of those hours performed on a weekend if possible. The internship must consist of serious journalistic enterprise and must be pre-approved by the Director of Career Services. At the end of the term, students write a short report and their on-site supervisor evaluates their performance. Note: This is not an elective interchangeable with other classes, but rather an extra course for students whose employers require that they get academic credit to intern.
Jour72051 Independent Study 3 credits
This course will enable students to pursue independent study in a topic or medium not covered by the curriculum. Students can explore a subject in depth and produce one long journalistic piece or a series of shorter pieces, in any media they choose. Students work under the direction of a full-time faculty member and are selected with the approval of the Dean.
Jour75000 Summer Internship 3 credits
Students spend 8 to 10 weeks working at a media outlet in the New York City area, or elsewhere if they desire. Possibilities include online media, community and local newspapers, trade and consumer magazines, broadcast stations and networks, and CUNY TV and cable stations. Students write two progress reports and meet for regular group discussions with the internship program director and journalism guest speakers.
Capstone Project
As a requirement for graduation, students must complete a major project of professional-level quality. Students may produce either a 3,000-word article, a five-to-nine-minute broadcast piece, a multimedia package of stories or a multimedia entrepreneurial proposal. A combination of formats is possible with the approval of a faculty advisor.
Subject Concentration Courses
Arts & Culture Reporting
Jour73011 Cultural Reporting 3 credits
This course will train students to report on the arts as hard news in four distinct segments: Art & Politics; Art & Money; Art & Process; and Art & Society. Topics include public funding of the arts, political and market forces, the practical side of artistic creation, large-scale cultural trends, the business of the arts, arts institutions, and key issues and controversies. Students will learn methods of fact-based reporting and how to access sources of data to enrich cultural writing.
Jour72010 Criticism and the Arts 3 credits
Students learn to write criticism of the arts - music, movies, performing arts, visual and interdisciplinary arts. These critical pieces range in length and style - from short reviews to in-depth critical essays. Reading includes background pieces on the evolution of a given art form and criticism about it, as well as "touchstone" writings, old and new, that offer a standard of comparison for judging works of criticism. There will be reporting trips and outside speakers.
Jour73014 Covering Culture in the Age of Convergence 3 credits
Note: Journalism of Ideas can be taken as an alternative.
This course will address how to cover the arts at a time when digital technology is changing music, film and television and broadening our definition of culture itself. Students will discuss how to make sense of these shifts as both reporters and critics. Specific topics will include: How critics can assess emerging art forms like YouTube videos; how reporters can use new media to cover art forms that are rapidly changing, and how journalists can cover user-generated content.
Business & Economics Reporting
Jour72007 Business & Economics Reporting I: The Economy 3 credits
Students learn the economic context of the business world they seek to cover, including business cycles, fiscal and monetary policy, and globalization. They interpret statistics, identify trends, explain policy, and analyze economic controversies. In-class writing exercises and assignments stress understanding and analysis of our economic system.
Jour73005 Business & Economics Reporting II: Covering Companies 3 credits
At the heart of any economy are companies, and covering them is the critical core of business journalism. Students learn how to interview executives, evaluate corporate strategies, analyze earnings reports, and understand the role of capital markets and investors. Students will select a single company to cover for the semester, which will serve as the basis for stories on strategy, earnings, governance, and the CEO.
Jour73006 Business & Economics Reporting III: Covering Wall Street 3 credits
Students will become fluent in the language of Wall Street, learning how the stock, bond, and currency markets work, and the role played by Wall Street firms, exchanges, and regulators. Assignments focus on markets, firms, investing, and regulation.
Health & Medicine Reporting
Jour72009 Health/Medicine I: Following the Money in Health Care 3 credits
Why does the health system of the richest country in the world rank number 37 in overall quality? What do we get for the $ 2 trillion we spend each year on medical care? Where does the money go? This course will examine who pays for care: health insurers, including Medicare and Medicaid, profit and non-profit managed care companies, and employers—and who benefits: the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals, nursing homes, doctors, and patients. It will also look at the federal and state agencies that oversee health care.
Jour73007 Health/Medicine II: Separating Hype from Reality 3 credits
Each year more than 600,000 medical studies are published around the world. How do journalists decide what findings to report? Where do you find experts you can trust? How do you decipher statistics? How do you detect spin and conflicts of interest among medical professionals and researchers and provide context for your stories? In this course, you will get hands-on experience searching data bases such as Medline and the Dartmouth Atlas and learn how to translate data into understandable stories.
Jour73008 Health/Medicine III: How the World Affects Our Health 3 credits
Many factors determine our health: where we live, what we eat, our income, our families, our choices, our jobs. This course will explore in depth those determinants of health. It will examine the impact of the environment on public health and the ethics of care, especially at the end of life. It will also look at health in an international context. How do we cover the urban immigrant health experience? Is health a human right? What does the global economy mean for the spread of infectious diseases?
International Reporting
Jour72001 Introduction to International Reporting 3 credits
This course will introduce students to the basic tenets of international reporting. How is it similar to and different from local or national reporting? Students will cover the United Nations; do stories about U.S. foreign policy, diplomacy, and global economic and health issues. They will also learn to report international issues from the bottom up, through coverage of immigrants and refugees here in New York. The course will review war coverage, coverage of the military, press censorship and repression worldwide, and the emergence of the web in international coverage.
Jour73000 Cross-Cultural Reporting 3 credits
This course in the International Reporting concentration will provide students with in-depth training in reporting across cultural lines, the essence of international reporting. Students will immerse themselves in one or more of the many ethnic and national groups in large numbers here in New York. Learning customs, communication styles, political attitudes, family life and history, the students will cover these communities from the vantage point of international correspondents. The course will make ties to news and developments in the countries of origin. Through conversations with visiting correspondents and those in the field, students will get tips on covering other cultures and nationalities. Analysis of successful coverage and readings from accounts of reporters overseas will also feature prominently in the course.
Jour72011 Topics in International Reporting 3 credits
This is a comprehensive, project-oriented course that will target one or more newsy regions overseas for coverage, either through a class project or with individual assignments. Students will be required to do extensive research and reporting to produce work that could constitute a capstone project.
Urban Reporting
Jour72008 Urban Reporting I: Covering City Government and Politics 3 credits
This course gives students a thorough understanding of how to report on the way the city is governed – how power is wielded and policy decisions are reached. Using a variety of different media formats, students will learn how to produce news and feature reports on the vast New York City government bureaucracy, public authorities and unofficial but key players such as lobbyists, labor unions, business, advocacy groups and community organizations.
Jour73003 Urban Reporting II: Covering New York City's Economy and Business 3 credits
The goal of this course is to help students understand and report effectively on the key economic and business forces shaping New York City. With the aid of selected readings and guest speakers, students will learn about the city’s most important industries and employers, the role of small businesses and immigrant entrepreneurs, and the impact of real estate and economic development. After getting an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of New York City’s economy, students will focus on some of the cutting-edge economic issues the city faces.
Jour73004 Urban Reporting III: Covering New York's Immigrant Communities 3 credits
This course will teach students to cover critical social issues in New York City through the unique lens of ethnic communities. With 37 percent of the city's population now foreign-born, journalists need to be able to navigate a variety of immigrant cultures in order to deliver fresh, compelling stories about education, housing, health, poverty, criminal justice and race relations, among others. This course will take advantage of the rich ethnic mix of New York to help students develop cross-cultural reporting skills and tell powerful, previously untold, stories that reveal much about the human condition.
