[ Another in our “Notes From…” series - short notes by volunteers summarizing various events around the school, to help those of us who didn’t/couldn’t attend. Watch for several other “Notes From…” throughout the year. If you have one, send it in! Or let us know in advance that you’d like to do one; or after the event, too. ]
Below, notes from a lecture by Prof. Bruce Porter on how to choose a Master’s Project topic. Many thanks to volunteer notes-taker Sheena Tahilramani, J2007. Feel free to drop her note or post a comment below (free, one-time registration required).
Notes From… Bruce Porter’s lecture: “How to Choose a Master’s Project”
By Sheena Tahilramani
E-mail: sat2127[at]columbia.edu
Prof. Bruce Porter, our resident Master’s Project expert (partly because he did one himself when he was a student at Columbia in the early 1960s, along with his classmater, Patrick J. Buchanan), gives annual talks on various aspects of the Master’s Project. On Wed., Sept.13, he spoke about choosing a topic. He will talk about writing one later in the semester. He gave students, in adavance, copies of his New York Times Magazine cover story on big guns, . At the end of this report, you will see a note listing some good PRINT Master’s Projects from the past that he mentioned in his lecture.
What is the Master’s Project?
It’s a rare event that you’ll be given so much time to explore a topic. The Master’s Projects are also a lasting moment of the school. You should start thinking of them as long magazine stories. Over the years, the contents of the projects have changed—from cosmic stories such as “Let’s Look at Contact Lenses” and “Can We Control the Weather?” to what was known as a ‘’live in experience'’ (i.e., immersion). You ought to learn something from your reporting, to really illuminate something for yourself. It shouldn’t be just to further a political idea or view, etc. Ideally you might want to strive for some kind of combination of the two, take a macro issue and focus on a micro part of it. It’s a story that is meant to convey something that you want to say in a powerful way. It’s something that becomes humanized—’’there are no issues, there are only people.'’
Topic vs. Story
Another thing that you should think about or see the difference in is a master’s topic and a master’s story. For example, “AIDS: Are we Doing Enough?” is a topic. “Infected and In Love” is a story. The story sets the topic in motion.
Access
Access is like gold (see 2005 sous chef story - below). You have to determine early on what sort of access you have. We already know that public officials are impossible to talk to. So, you need to develop strategies on how you’re going to do this without relying on public officials. The solution with police, education and corrections is oftentimes to skirt them (i.e., talk to the inmates). If you want to visit a prison, sign in as a friend not a journalist. You won’t be able to take in a notepad but you can arrange to have the inmate call you and then you can take notes. It is possible to petition the Department of Corrections for entrance as a journalist, but there is a lot of red tape (not recommended). The same holds true for the Department of Education. Nobody can stop you from talking with the students, parents, PTA. You may have to use the information you glean from these sources to leverage an interview with the principal. Don’t limit yourself to advocates. There are a lot of advocates and many of them are compelling and have good stories, but you have to get something from the other side. Otherwise, it’s a one-way street and not a very good story.
How to Approach a Topic
In approaching the topic, avoid becoming hysterical. Take your time choosing a topic. Avoid something that’s a community issue in your RWI class that your professor thinks might be interesting. You’ve got to be interested in this, enthusiastic about your project. A good plan when you first arrive at an idea is to ask yourself, “Is this doable?” It looks like you have a year, but you don’t. Don’t do a big topic, do some small piece of that topic. If you’re doing the issue of homeless people looking for shelters, pick one homeless person! You can’t do them all. Next piece of advice is to work steadily and slowly. Every week, do what a journalist calls ‘’gathering string.'’ You should probably tape record this project because as time passes, your scribbled notes may lose clarity. Get a decent tape recorder and do an interview a week. Transcribe it then, don’t wait! The length of this is around 5,000 words or 20 pages. The process of developing an idea is going to occupy you for about a month. You’ll run into quite a few ideas that don’t seem doable. Look at your story and see if you can come in through a side door, something different.
o o o o o
PROF. PORTER’S LIST OF THE FACULTY’S FAVORITE PRINT STORIES
Prof. Porter asked faculty members for their favorite recent projects - the list is below, with the various professors’ comments (and some input on locations by Deborah Wassertzug, Journalism Librarian).
PLEASE NOTE: All Master’s projects from 2002 to present are in the Journalism Library.
From years earlier than 2002 - just go over to Lehman Library, located in the lower
level of the School of International Affairs building (118th St & Amsterdam). Master’s projects from 1957-2001 are housed on the lower level of Lehman Library.
An index by author of Master’s projects & theses can be found online at
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/jour/masters/index.html
You can’t check out any of the bound volumes, so please be prepared to
either sit and read the project or thesis, or put money on your ID to make
photocopies of it in the library.
Please be aware that the list compiled below by faculty includes both
Master’s projects by MS students, as well as MA theses. The MA theses
from 2006 (the program’s first year) are in the Journalism Library as
well, with the volumes bound in red rather than green.
1. My favorite thesis last year was written by Moises Velasquez-Manoff, in
the MA program. Moises has a rare congenital condition called alopecia,
which has made him bald since he was a kid. That’s a traumatic thing to
happen to you when you’re twelve. Now that he’s a science writer, Moises
decided to look into the science of the condition. His research led him
into a big and fascinating area of research that goes way beyond baldness
and that affects many more of us than you’d expect.
**MA THESIS - JOURNALISM LIBRARY**
2. Jill Bauerle, “Surviving the War in Berlin,” 2006.
**MS MASTER’S PROJECT - JOURNALISM LIBRARY**
3. I’ve got a bunch of faves from among my advisees. Off the top of my
head, Katie Baker ‘05 on sous-chefs (**MS MASTER’S PROJECT - JOURNALISM
LIBRARY**); Mark Fass ‘04 on the legal and personal aftermath of a
famous tabloid crime case from the ’60s (**MS MASTER’S PROJECT -
JOURNALISM LIBRARY**); Kelly Niknejad ‘05 on Iranian exiles in the US
(**MA THESIS - JOURNALISM LIBRARY**); also, Greg Gilderman on why cops in Philadelphia aren’t making more progress at reducing the murder rate (it has just been finished and won’t be in the library till summer 2007; Greg is a current PT student, so you can ask him about it directly).
4. Blacks for Bush, by Arin Gencer 2006 : A sophisticated piece of
explanatory journalism about what’s behind the uptick in black Republicans
for Bush in the last election.
(**MS MASTER’S PROJECT - JOURNALISM LIBRARY**)
5. Danielle Shapiro wrote her 2006 Master’s project on American Muslims
in the Military. It won one of our prizes.
(**MS MASTER’S PROJECT - JOURNALISM LIBRARY**)
6. Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood-2005
Master’s by Louise Story that ran in the New York Times.
(**MS MASTER’S PROJECT - JOURNALISM LIBRARY**)
7. Alice Kenny (’03) had a terrific story on autism that the NYT ran as a
cover story in the Westchester section.
(**MS MASTER’S PROJECT - JOURNALISM LIBRARY**)
8. Alan Rappeport (’02) had fine piece on breakaway Hasidic teenagers,
using one kid’s story to illustrate a larger phenom.
(**MS MASTER’S PROJECT - JOURNALISM LIBRARY**)
9. Kevin Hoffman (’01) had powerful piece on committed couples living with
AIDS when only one partner was infected (both gay and hetero)
(**MS MASTER’S PROJECT - LEHMAN LIBRARY**)
10. Olivia Barker (’98) had a wonderful piece on tension among Russians in
Brighton Beach.
(**MS MASTER’S PROJECT - LEHMAN LIBRARY**)
11. Chris Nuttall-Smith (’99), profile of released sex offender in New
Jersey, picked up and run as cover story in New York Magazine.
(**MS MASTER’S PROJECT - LEHMAN LIBRARY**)
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