FOR FULL-TIME & PART-TIME M.S. STUDENTS.
Fall Term Courses
REPORTING & WRITING (RWI) 6 points
Note: we will assign you to a RWI section and instructors
This is the core course in reporting and writing on which much student work is built. Using metropolitan New York as a laboratory, students cover a variety of news events and issues. Street reporting is supplemented by regular deadline writing exercises under the supervision of the Faculty and by assignments designed to familiarize students with material they will encounter in professional work. Classes will have or share Web sites where student work will be published for the communities they cover.
RWI seeks to blend instruction in the craft and the substance of journalism so students will graduate knowing how to write in an accurate, clear and complete fashion, meet a deadline, gather and verify material, and understand several subject areas that are essential to reporting. They also will learn and use several digital-media techniques and gain experience in incorporating those skills in the reporting and publishing process.
Street Reporting: Instructors will generally give students at least one reporting assignment each week. Some assignments may be stories to be reported and written that day; others may require deeper coverage for an entire day, to be handed in the following day. Later in the term, instructors may ask students to execute longer pieces requiring reporting and writing spanning two or three weeks.
Deadline Writing: Students spend several hours writing in class under deadline conditions, with on-the-spot supervision. Sometimes, students are given material in class from which to write their stories, while other days they must develop their own sources.
Accuracy is essential. Errors in punctuation, spelling and grammar may be grounds for failing a paper. Students will be expected to redo assignments that don’t meet their instructors’ standards.
REPORTING & WRITING FOR BROADCASTING (RWI) 8 credits
Several sections of RWI will be tailored for broadcast students and taught jointly by print and broadcast professors. The course will cover the same print reporting techniques as other sections, plus reporting for radio and television. Because the Jumbo RWI is an eight-credit course, broadcast students DO NOT take an RWII elective.
ESSENTIALS OF JOURNALISM
This program includes four required courses, each half a semester long. Full-time M.S. students will take two the first half and two the second half, in varying order. All courses will be taught in morning and afternoon sessions on Fridays.
Law of Journalism, 1 point
Instructors: Freeman, Karle, Zucker
This course provides students with a practical understanding of legal issues that most affect journalists today. Students will get a basic understanding of the First Amendment, and will move from there to learning about privacy, defamation, libel, fair use of content and copywright, agreements with sources and rules governing liability for journalists whose sources commit crimes or torts. Many of these issues will be addressed within the changing contexts brought on by the Internet.
Business of Journalism, 1 point
Instructors: Grueskin, Klein
This course will give students a basic understanding of the business of gathering and publishing news. Students will learn about the models that have supported print and broadcast outlets, as well as the concentration of media and regulation by government bodies. We will look at the disruption in those models caused by the Web and other factors. Students will learn about new news organizations and business models for stand-alone journalists. At the end, they will be challenged to think, in small groups, about business models for the future.
Ethics of Journalism, 1 point
Instructors: Klatell, Solomon
In this course, students will deal with ethical issues that often arise in the practice of journalism. Those include verification of information, the relationship between your personal morality and journalistic decisions, issues brought up by competition and the ubiquity of news, and the impact the Internet has on forcing decisions within narrow time frames. The class will rely heavily on case studies developed at the Journalism School.
History of Journalism, 1 point
Instructors: Lemann, Schudson, Tucher
How has the role of the journalist changed over the decades? This course will look at the influence of partisanship, technological change and varying definitions of objectivity to examine how journalism has been changed. It will include examination of several key fators, including important court cases, major news events and significant changes in technology, including radio, television and online.
Part-time M.S. students may either take Journalism Essentials on Friday mornings with the full-time students or they may opt to take Critical Issues for two points and Journalism, the Law & Society for two points in the evenings (This fall’s schedule for them is in the section for PT students only at the bottom). Beginning next fall (2010), Journalism Essentials will also be offered in the evenings.
MASTER’S PROJECT
3 points in Fall; 3 points in Spring (6 points for PT students over the summer)
In its scope and duration, the Master’s Project is a student’s most sustained effort. In terms of relative importance, credits and priority, however, it should be kept in perspective with the rest of the curriculum. The Project is not a thesis in the traditional academic sense, but rather an in-depth exploration of a topic as a journalist would pursue it.
Master’s Projects may be executed in print, digital media or broadcast (radio or television) forms. Students work on radio and print projects individually, and students doing video or digital-media projects work with one or two partners. Video documentary projects require an extra semester (see below).
An assigned adviser offers advice in selecting a topic, fixing its focus and working through an approach, conducting the research and doing the reporting, then organizing, writing, rewriting (and re-recording, where appropriate) the various versions.
For those students undertaking the project this academic year (All FT and some PT students), we would like to know from you which type of project they would like to undertake – including the general topic, if you know that now. Students should indicate their preferences, even if they are tentative, on the Fall ballot, since we will attempt to match advisers with students according to their preferences, as much as possible.
Students will begin meeting with their adviser in September, and regularly thereafter, depending on whatever arrangments students and advisers choose.
* Please note that part-time students opting to do their Master’s Project over during the academic year (fall/spring), must be available on Friday afternoons for group meetings.
Master’s Project Requirements
Every student carrying out a project must meet the minimum requirements of 1) a proposal; 2) an early outline; and 3) three drafts or edits. Some variations are permitted at the discretion of advisers. The broadcast (see below) and digital-media faculty have slightly different requirements.
Students must meet with their advisers early during the Fall to develop a topic. That topic must be fixed by Nov. 6. Serious work on the project will proceed during the Fall as well as over the holiday break. A “billboard” or brief description, preliminary outline and list of likely sources must be submitted to advisers Dec. 1. The results of your initial reporting and interviews are due by Dec. 15; your adviser will specify what he/she requires. The first draft is due on Jan. 19, 2009. The second draft is due Feb. 22. The third-and final-draft will be turned in at the end of the Spring break, March 22.
You should stay in close and frequent contact with your adviser, who will explain the school’s expectations and requirements for completion of the project.
Choosing a Topic
Students should consider a topic that is significant, interesting, and feasible and will sustain their interest over months of research. You should choose a topic you find fascinating and complex. You don’t have to already be an expert on the subject; indeed, a good reporter becomes an expert.
For both logistical and educational reasons, the topic must focus on the New York area — that is, the student must collect most of the necessary information, and interview characters in person, in the New York area. You may need to do phone or email interviews, and collect information online, but that should be a lesser part of your overall reporting effort. Projects that need reporting in a foreign country will not be approved. Projects needing substantial reporting outside of the New York region also are discouraged.
Print projects should run between 5,000 and 8,000 words; in rare cases, they may go longer if the material requires it and if the adviser so recommends. With approval of advisers, they can also include online elements, such as slide shows or audio elements. Projects executed in broadcast or digital media vary according to the complexity of the material involved.
If you have a particular area of interest for your project, please indicate that on the ballot due July 13. We will try to match your interest to an appropriate advisor, but can’t guarantee individual choices. And if you don’t have a topic in mind yet, that’s fine. You’ll get plenty of advice when you arrive on how to narrow down your interests.
Required Third Semester for Video Master’s Project
Students who opt to complete a video project must stay for an additional semester — either the summer or fall of 2010 — to complete their work. The faculty believes that high-quality, 30-minute video documentaries need more time than our standard program permits. The proposal and acceptance process for television master’s projects will take place in the Fall semester. If you have any interest in pursuing this, please indicate so on your ballot; you will be able to change your mind later. Approximate extra tuition cost will be $9,000 for the third semester. Scholarship aid is available to help defray that cost if needed.
Master’s Project Reference List
These are highly recommended as examples of the kind of journalism to which the Master’s Project aspires:
- Helen Benedict: Portraits in Print (Columbia University Press, 1991)
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Joan Didion: Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Washington Square Press, 1991) and The White Album (Simon & Schuster, 1979)
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Oriana Fallaci: Interview with History (Houghton Mifflin, 1977)
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Frances Fitzgerald: Cities on a Hill (Simon & Schuster, 1986)
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Samuel Freedman: Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church (HarperCollins, 1994)
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Pete Hamill: Piecework (Little Brown, 1996)
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LynNell Hancock: Hands to Work: The Stories of Three Families Racing the Welfare Clock (William Morrow, 2002)
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Randolph T. Holhut: The George Seldes Reader (Barricade Books, 1994)
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J. Anthony Lukas: Common Ground (Knopf, 1985)
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William Lutz: The New Doublespeak (Harper Collins, 1996)
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John McPhee: The John McPhee Reader (Vintage, 1976, originally published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
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Jessica Mitford: Poison Penmanship (Knopf, 1979)
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Sylvia Nasar: A Beautiful Mind (Touchstone, 2001)
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Bruce Porter: Blow (St. Martin’s Press, 1994)
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Michael Shapiro: Solomon’s Sword: Two Families and the Children the State Took Away (Westview Press, 2002)
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In-depth broadcasts such as Frontline, 60 Minutes, All Things Considered, Nightline, and various radio and television documentaries
SPECIALIZED REPORTING/WRITING ELECTIVES (RWII)
3 points
As the title indicates, these 10-week courses focus on specific news beats, such as international reporting or business reporting, or on specific writing techniques, such as feature or profile writing. Faculty assign an average of three writing assignments, along with regular reading assignments, though that varies depending on the class and the instructor. All electives begin in October and include a weekly 2-3 hour class meeting on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or on Saturdays. (Schedules are adjusted for Thanksgiving week.) No classes for full-time students are offered Thursday evenings, because students are invited to attend the School’s all-class lectures and panel discussions. Part-time students are also invited to participate in those sessions.
Specialization is continued and expanded in the spring term in the Advanced Reporting/Writing Seminars. Thus, in the spring students can ballot for a second specialty or ballot to enlarge on one taken in the first term.
Print students will take one of the classes below; digital media students will automatically be registered for a section of Digital Media Newsroom (description below).
The Art of the Profile – John Bennet
Business and Financial Journalism (I) – Mike Miller
Business and Financial Journalism (II) – Tom Herman
Covering National Politics – Thomas Edsall
Covering New York Politics – Wayne Barrett
Cultural Affairs Reporting and Writing – Charles Taylor
Environmental Reporting – Marguerite Holloway
Feature Writing (I) – Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Feature Writing (II) – Karen Stabiner
Foreign Reporting Off the Beaten Path – Howard French
International Reporting – Tom Kent
News Editing – Robin Reisig
Opinion Writing – Seth Lipsky and Gail Collins
Personal and Professional Style – Judith Crist
Social Impact of Mass Media – Andie Tucher
Writing With Style – Kevin Coyne
RWII: Course descriptions
The Art of the Profile
Instructor: John Bennet,
Mon., 6 to 9 p.m.
This elective offers an in-depth chance to read, study and write profiles. The reading list includes John McPhee, Jane Kramer, Calvin Trillin, Gay Talese, Susan Orlean, Joan Didion and others. Students will write two short profiles and one long one. Your work will be critiqued in class and edited in detail.
Business and Financial Reporting (I)
Instructor: Mike Miller
Tues., 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Business and Financial Reporting (II)
Instructor: Tom Herman
Tues., 6:30-9 p.m.
This course is an introduction to the basic concepts and tools of business reporting, designed for students interested in the field as well as those planning to specialize in other areas. The dynamics of business are at the heart of most journalistic subjects–from politics to culture to sports to foreign affairs–so learning how to make sense of business news and bring it to life are invaluable skills for all journalists. We will study these subjects both through readings, by following and discussing news stories throughout the semester, and by analyzing classic business articles. Our discussion will focus on the different lenses through which business stories can be viewed: people, places, processes (eg how to create a new fast-food product made from Fritos),and numbers (how do they get manipulated, when is it illegal, how does the public find out). Several short features will be assigned, as well as in-class writing exercises. We will cover effective methods for conceiving and pitching stories, identifying and interviewing sources, story structure, and writing. Several class sessions will feature guest speakers from major business and general-interest publications. (A version of this course will likely be repeated in the Spring.)
Covering National Politics
Instructor: Thomas Edsall
Weds., 6-9 p.m.
This course will focus on politics and policy-making in the 2009 session of Congress, looking at political activity through the lens of resource competition at a time of scarcity. The course will examine in detail the partisan forces at work in the drafting, committee work, and ultimate outcome of major pieces of legislation, including the Obama administration’s financial reform agenda and health care reform. Students will write about the progress of legislation, explore interest-group rivalry, and the reasons for the success or failure of legislative initiatives. The course will make use of lobbying and campaign finance reports; will track the activities of trade associations and other stakeholders; observe the actions of members of Congress, constituents, organized pressure groups, the media, and the executive branch.
Covering New York Politics
Instructor: Wayne Barrett
Day/Time TBA
Covering New York Politics prepares students to report and write news and feature stories about legislative, congressional and municipal offices, using New York’s 2008 and 2009 elections as a laboratory. The November election gives Democrats the greatest opportunity since 1966 to regain control of the New York State Senate, and students will cover hotly contested senate races in the city and suburbs. In addition, some of the candidates vying to succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2009 will visit the class and become the subjects of class coverage. Races for other city posts—from comptroller to council—will also be examined. Every student will become an expert on one race or candidate, probing donors, vendors, bundlers, associated lobbyists as well as major issues such as campaign tactics and funding of neighborhood support groups. Class guests will include reporters who cover campaigns as well as those who oversee lobbyist and campaign finance systems. Students will be encouraged to post copy on two city newspaper Web sites. In addition to blogs and short news pieces, every student will produce a feature-length story on the race or candidate they select for individual focus and will share their findings with the class.
Cultural Affairs Reporting and Writing
Instructor: Charles Taylor
Mon. 7 to 9 p.m.
This course will help aspiring journalists understand the elements that make up successful, authoritative cultural reporting. Working from a definition of culture that encompasses the arts, politics, and the zeitgeist in general, we will, among other areas, study personality profiles, arts criticism, and the kind of longform literary political criticism that has become orphaned in the era of the sound byte and 24-news cycle. We will focus on developing fresh resonant ideas free of the hype and barely disguised publicity that has come to define too much arts and entertainment — and, sadly, political — coverage in the age of celebrity. There will be three writing assignments: One news-oriented feature, one profile, and one work of criticism. In addition, students will write proposals for all story ideas and present oral pitches for them in class. Rewrites are expected. We will have several guest speakers, including performing artists, writers and editors.
Digital Media Newsroom (I) – Russell Chun & Tom Edsall: Tuesday, 6-9 p.m.
Digital Media Newsroom (II) – Helen Benedict & Duy Linh Tu: Tuesday, 4:30-7:30 p.m.
Digital Media Newsroom (III) – Kenan Davis & Sig Gissler: Wednesday, 6-9 p.m.
Digital Media Newsroom (IV) – Arlene Morgan & Duy Linh Tu: Monday, 6-9 p.m.
Digital Media Newsroom (V) – John Smock & Derrick Henry: Saturday, time TBA
Please note this elective runs 15 weeks rather than 10.
This course will introduce students to multimedia storytelling and newsroom work flow. Using a combination of original reporting as well as building on stories already done for RW1, students will work with several digital-media tools, including web page production; photography and image editing; audio and video editing; blogging; data analysis, etc. This course is an excellent opportunity for students to learn how newsrooms are evolving - combining the best of traditional reporting and editing with the latest new media storytelling techniques. Students will learn to efficiently and effectively apply the technical skills learned in the August training sessions to traditional reporting and writing.
NOTE: This course is mandatory for, and restricted to, digital media majors;
Environmental Reporting
Instructor: Marguerite Holloway
Wed. 6 to 9 p.m.
Covering the environment is an increasingly complex and important beat. Through extensive readings, visits with working journalists and scientists, and their own reporting and writing assignments, students taking this class will become familiar with some of the major environmental stories of the day. These will range from the specific concerns of individual communities about clean air and water to national issues—how to balance economic development with the preservation of species and ecosystems, how to wrestle with energy policy, environmental racism and more—to international conflicts over climate change, access to water resources, exploitation of the oceans and many other examples.
Students will also become knowledgeable about the legislation that governs this beat, the complexities of risk assessment and the key challenge of striking a responsible balance by finding sources other than those on the fringe, which can muddy the issues badly.
Feature Writing (I)Instructor: Karen Stabiner
Wed., 6-9 p.m.
Feature writing is a balancing act between assignment and intuition, information and narrative, reporting and the writer’s voice. The category includes everything from a 500-word on-line post to a 5,000-word multi-part series; what matters is that it’s compelling, rich in detail, and definitive. We’ll read good – and not-so-good – examples, analyze the difference, identify potential pitfalls, and hear from writers who excel at the form. You’ll be both writing and reading each other’s work along the way: Exercise counts, in writing as in less sedentary activities.
Feature Writing (II)
Instructor: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Mon., 7-9 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.
Destination Out: Foreign Reporting Off the Beaten Path
Instructor: Howard French
Mon., 6-8 p.m.
Foreign correspondents enjoy an image as the most seasoned and trusted of reporters. This class will take a close look at what happens when reporters are thrust, most often by crisis or emergency, into coverage of places that receive at best only episodic attention from the world’s media, focusing on examples drawn from Africa, Asia and Latin America. It will examine some of the pitfalls working in places that tend to be unfamiliar to reporters and their editors. The aim of the course is nothing short of building the better reporter: people who can ramp up quickly, for sure, but also people who take seriously the need to study history, appreciate the nuances of culture and keep up their guard against cliché and conventional wisdom. Students will be expected to participate in in-depth discussions of weekly readings on individual countries or crises aimed at raising their cultural awareness and appreciation for the use and misuse of history in journalism. Working foreign correspondents will be guests on occasion in the seminar. During the course of the semester, students will be required to write three papers, including two criticisms of current foreign newspaper or magazine coverage and a longer, heavily reported essay on a foreign topic of the student’s choice. For this project, students will be expected to interview.
International Reporting
Instructor: Tom Kent
Wed., 7 to 9 p.m.
This course is an introduction to the techniques and challenges of international reporting for online, print and broadcast media. Main themes include ethics, writing, reporting from dangerous areas, covering the military, career opportunities in the international reporting and ways to engage readers and viewers who may have a slim interest in international affairs. Students will be assigned readings, write three stories of varying length and critique media coverage of current international issues
News Editing
Instructor: Robin Reisig
Tues., 6 to 8:30 p.m.
This course will explain how editors ensure accuracy, fairness, clarity, precision and completeness while keeping an eye on tone and structure. Will also examine the detail work — spelling, punctuation, grammar, style — with an emphasis on how problems in those areas affect meaning and damage credibility. Portions of the course will deal with deciding what is news, and with aspects of presentation (headline writing, photo use), along with an understanding of how the exigencies of the online world affect how stories and posts are edited. Participants will edit stories with an emphasis on reading critically, raising good questions and dealing with reporters in ways that should elicit positive changes in copy.
Opinion Writing
Instructor: Seth Lipsky and Gail Collins
Mon., 6 to 8 p.m.
How to form an opinion — and express it. Taught by Gail Collins and Seth Lipsky, this course will deal with the theory and practice of opinion journalism and will focus on the relationship between good reporting and strong opinion. Students will work on editorials, op-ed columns, and blog posts. The course will explore how to shape an opinion on subjects as diverse as politics, foreign policy, the economy and culture. It will require significant amounts of reading from the giants, such as W.E.B. Du Bois and H.L. Mencken and Mary McGrory, as well as contemporary writers, such as Ross Douthat, Maureen Dowd and Hendrik Hertzberg. The second hour of each class will be an editorial meeting, during which issues will be discussed and assignments will be made for the week. Each student will be expected to produce one opinion piece a week.
Personal and Professional Style Instructor: Judith Crist
Tues., 1:30 to 5:30 p.m.
The nature and demands of this course make it necessary to limit the class size. It is offered to students who have mastered the basic mechanics and techniques of journalistic prose and are interested in developing and refining a personal literary style within a journalistic framework, appropriate to editorials, columns and reviews. The emphasis is on form, structure and semantics for effective and original approaches to specialized writing in areas too long cliché-ridden. There are basic assignments and free-choice exercises, with concentration on self- and intra-group criticism. Prospective students must submit one sample of their best writing and, in no more than 350 words, a statement of their interest in the course. These are to be delivered directly to Assistant Dean Huff, who must receive them by 10 a.m., Monday, July 13.
Social Impact of Mass Media
Instructor: Andie Tucher
Tues. 4 to 6 p.m.
In this course we explore the social consequences of what journalists do and the complex relationships between the press and the public. Through readings, class discussions, and close observations of media past and present, we locate the work of journalism in its social, historical, and theoretical context, focusing on such topics as the media’s obligation to society; relationships between the press and the theory and practice of democracy; the media and storytelling; social ramifications of new technologies and new economic structures; and how the media are implicated in our perceptions of time, space, memory, and identity.
Writing With Style
Instructor: Kevin Coyne
Wed., 7 to 9 p.m.
All prose, good and bad, has a fingerprint. You can usually tell within just a few lines who wrote it, and whether it’s worth reading. So where does a writer’s style come from, and how can you sharpen your own? By taking apart the work of other writers both fiction and nonfiction you will analyze the elements of a prose style in this class, and then apply these lessons to your own work. The idea here is not to learn how to mimic the voices of other writers, but how to develop your own. Among the writers we will be reading are George Orwell, Alice Munro, John McPhee, Tracy Kidder, James Joyce, Jane Kramer, Joan Didion and John Cheever. There will be three writing assignments of medium length: the first an account of a place or an event; the second a portrait of a person; the third an attempt to combine the two into a narrative.
SKILLS OF THE JOURNALIST
1 point per class (These are 5-week mini-courses.)
Audio Storytelling
This course is open to all full-time students and those part-time students who began the program Summer ‘09, except those in the broadcast concentration. It builds on what you have learned with more advanced training in interviewing, writing, and producing audio reports for radio and other media platforms. Students will work in the digital audio laboratory. Each student will select one assignment done for this class to post as a podcast on the Web.
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.
Investigative Skills (non-Stabile)
Students will learn advanced applications of computer-assisted reporting, and will be able to find a variety of hidden documents useful to good journalism: court records, pollution and safety studies, campaign contributions, the filings of tax-exempt organizations, child abuse and industrial safety statistics, corporate records, etc.
Advanced Photojournalism
Building on pre-RW1 training, students learn additional photography skills, using Photoshop, scanners and printers to produce short photo essays on non-fiction topics.
Social-media Skills for Journalists
This course will help journalists use social media (including such sites as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, among others) to do three things: find new story ideas, trends and sources; connect with readers and viewers; and promote their own work to new audiences. The students will learn best practices as well as what to avoid in this fast-changing world. Many journalists already use these tools, but the course will take that knowledge to new levels with practical, actionable lessons in how best to navigate social media. Using examples from news organizations big and small, as well as individuals, topics covered will include ethics; etiquette; new third-party tools; the changing journalist-source relationship and more.
Stabile Investigative Skills (Stabile Students Only)
This is a 10-week crash course on the tools that investigative journalists use for their research and reporting. The course will focus on the skills that watchdog journalists need: interviewing, document and database searching, data analysis, data visualization and computer-assisted reporting. It will also help students conceptualize investigative projects and run them through the process that journalists go through in the course of their investigations.
*Note: There are several additional skills sections for PT students listed in the PT only section below.
INTERNSHIP
0.5 credit
A student who, with the prior approval of the Assistant Dean of Students and the Office of Career Services undertakes an internship at a media organization can earn 0.5 credit if the work consists of serious journalistic enterprise. At the conclusion of the internship, the student must submit a written description of what he or she has accomplished and learned, and an official of the media company must send a separate letter corroborating that and evaluating the student’s performance. You do not request this class via the ballot. Please contact Career Services Director Ernest Sotomayor for details.
FALL TERM COURSES FOR PART-TIME M.S. STUDENTS ONLY
These courses are not open to full-time M.S. students
The Literature of Non-Fiction 6 point seminar
Instructor: Benedict
Mon., 6:30-9 p.m.
This 15-week course is designed to expose students to the most influential and innovative nonfiction writers of the past and present. Starting with Samuel Pepys and W.E.B. DuBois and moving up to contemporary writers such as Susan Orlean and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, we will examine how nonfiction has evolved in its approach, subject matter, voice and style. Assignments: Two short, critical reviews of the reading matter. One long literary essay, of the type found in The New York Review of Books, that links some of the readings with original research and thought. The essay should concern a writer from the past and from the present and discuss the influences on and evolution of nonfiction. Course not open to new full-time students.
TV Reporting and Writing 3 points
Instructor: TBA
Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This course is required of students in the part-time program who are concentrating in Broadcast journalism. This course covers the same materials that full-time students receive in their “jumbo” RWI sections, and prepares students for advanced courses in broadcast journalism. For part-time broadcast students only.
Columbia News Service 3 point elective
Instructor: David Blum
Wed., 6:30 to 9 p.m.
The Columbia News Service operates as a feature syndicate whose stories are thought up, reported and written by students under the guidance of faculty members. They are then distributed by the New York Times News Service for publication in some 400 daily newspapers throughout the United States and Canada. Topics concern anything of general interest happening in and around New York City. Subject matter can deal with the arts, entertainment, science, technology, health/fitness, sports, publishing, economics, fashion, ideas, travel, politics, academia, business, government–anything that would intrigue and inform a national audience. To see examples of what students produced last year, take a look at the CNS stories listed under Student Work on the school’s website. Also check the clips posted opposite the elevator and in the hallway on the 6th floor. Along with receiving instruction and practice in how to report and write feature stories, students will learn how to develop ideas, present them to editors in acceptable fashion and deal professionally with editors as staff writers and freelancers. Students must turn out four stories of 750 to 1500 words each in the course of the semester, writing and rewriting them, working one-to-one with their own instructor, until their pieces reach publishable quality. Please note that enrollment in this course does not make you ineligible for the Spring 6 credit version of the class.
Critical Issues in Journalism 2 points
Instructors: Richard Wald
Tuesday, 7-9 p.m.
This course, required of all students, explores the social role of journalism and the journalist from legal, historical, ethical, and economic perspectives. While the course covers some of the same issues raised in Journalism, the Law and Society, they are examined more from an ethical and professional point of view. This course begins in mid-October.
Journalism, the Law & Society 2 points
Instructor: Freeman
Wednesday, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
NOTE: Class meets on the following dates: Sept 9; Sept 16; Sept 23; Oct 7; Oct 14; Oct 21; Oct 28; Nov 4; Nov 18; Dec 2
The course examines the current and historic conflicts between journalists and jurists over fundamental First Amendment issues such as libel, privacy, prior restraint against publishing the news, protection of sources, the right to gather news, and national security. Broadcast regulations, including the Fairness Doctrine and questions of equal time and access are also explored. Reading includes texts of landmark cases. Two special sessions at the end of the course concentrate on practical aspects of libel and invasion of privacy.
Basic Audio Skills 1 point
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: This class is for part-time students only, and is required for part-time broadcast students.
Photojournalism Skills
Students learn the basics of photography, using Photoshop, scanners and printers to produce short photo essays on non-fiction topics.
: Students will attend one additional night of digital media training. 