Spring 2004 Curriculum

TO: All Students
FROM: David A. Klatell
RE: Spring Curriculum

Here is the program of instruction for the spring term. Full-time students are required to take a Reporting and Writing Seminar, a 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 school. In addition, all full-time magazine concentrators must take the Delacorte Evening Lecture Series (one-half credit). Part-time students concentrating in magazine may elect to take the lecture series in spring 2004 or spring 2005.

Students should read this material thoroughly and, after discussing the options with their advisers and the various instructors, indicate their choices on the web-based electronic ballot.

Enrollment in classes may be subject to the consent of instructors and most course enrollments are necessarily limited. As a result, some students may be assigned to second, or possibly third choices. This is done as fairly and equitably as possible. If circumstances warrant, it may be possible to add a second section for certain classes, with different instructors. Students are required to rank their preferences for seminars, workshops, and electives.

Students should be aware that evaluations of courses by students in previous years are available for your perusal; they can be found in the large black notebooks kept in the Journalism School library.

Ballots must be submitted on line no later than 9 am, Wednesday, November 26.

The School of Journalism's spring semester begins Tuesday, January 21, when the first draft of Master's Projects must be submitted to your adviser before 10 am Students completing broadcast 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 February 24 and March 24, both days at 10 am

Workshops begin Thursday, January 22. Seminars and Journalism School electives start the week of January 26.

The required courses for full-time students are:

  1. Advanced Reporting and Writing Seminars (J6002y), 6 credits
  2. Media Workshops (J6011y), 6 credits
  3. Master's Project II (J6041y), 3 credits
  4. Spring term electives, 3 credits

This Is 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 And 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 fuller course descriptions). Because accommodating all first choices is unlikely, students must indicate second and third choices. In filling out the ballots, students should list specific seminars in order of their preferences. The faculty permits some students to take graduate-level courses offered elsewhere in the University as, in effect, half of a seminar, with the other half to be supervised by a member of the Journalism faculty (this option is described in more detail below). Outside seminars must be approved by the Academic Dean's office.

Note: Admission to some seminars requires the instructor's approval in advance (see course descriptions below). If you have been selected by Sam Freedman, you should indicate that on your ballot. This class is already filled, so if you have not been pre-selected by the professor, you should not submit a ballot asking to enroll.

The Seminars:

Workshops

  • J6011y (6 credits)

Media workshops include a number of options: broadcast (TV -- Nightly News, Documentary, Magazine Production, and Radio), newspaper (Bronx Beat, Columbia News Service), magazine (Producing a Magazine, Magazine Writing, Literary Journalism) and New 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.

Students choose one section from the following workshop options:

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/video projects, the "work cut") will be handed in to your advisor by 10 am
  • Feb. 23: Second draft of all Projects (for video projects, a "rough cut") will be handed in to your advisor by 10 am
  • Mar. 22: Final versions of all Projects handed to the Academic Dean's office, in Room 701, by 10 am No changes are allowed after this deadline. This copy is ultimately filed in the library.

Note: These deadlines are strict and must be met. Your adviser may require additional deadlines and drafts.

Delacorte Evening Lecture Series

  • J6050y (1/2 credit)
  • Thursday 7pm - 8:30pm

Magazine concentrators are required to enroll in the Delacorte Magazine Lectures, to be offered Thursday evenings 7-8:30 pm All other students are invited to attend. Part-time students concentrating in magazine may elect to take the Lecture Series in spring 2004 or spring 2005.

Internship

  • J6099y (1/2 credit, optional)

Internships must be pre-approved by the Academic Dean's 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.

Concentrations

The school offers five different concentrations - Broadcasting, Magazine, New Media, Newspaper, and Health, Science and Environment.

Broadcasting
Coordinator: David Klatell
Students who concentrate in Broadcast take the radio or one of the television workshops in the spring.

Health, Science and Environment
Coordinator: Marguerite Holloway
Students take the Science Reporting and Writing seminar in the spring.

Magazine Journalism
Coordinator: Victor Navasky
Magazine journalism courses are offered through the George T. Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism. Students who major in magazine journalism must take one of the magazine workshops offered in the spring. Spring courses offered under the auspices of the Delacorte Center include Magazine Writing, Magazine Editing, Photojournalism, Producing a Magazine and Literary Journalism.

New Media
Coordinator: Sreenath Sreenivasan
Students wishing to concentrate in new media take the workshop in New Media.

Newspaper
Coordinator: Bruce Porter
Students take a Newspaper Workshop, either Bronx Beat or Columbia News Service.

Electives

  • (3 credits)

All students are required to take an elective for at least three credits at the graduate level -- 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 Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.

For "outside" courses, students must check the bulletins of other schools in the University.

Students can select from among the following options for spring electives offered by the School of Journalism:

Course Descriptions

Following are descriptions of the reporting/writing Seminars, the media Workshops, and Elective courses in the school. You may request a syllabus from the professors, or consult those posted on the school web site. For outside courses, consult bulletins of the other schools.

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 Academic Dean's office.

J6002y Advanced Reporting and Writing Seminars

  • Required (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.

International Affairs Reporting

This course explores the joys and difficulties of covering news in other countries and cultures. Each student covers and writes frequently about an immigrant community in New York. Class discussion and guests focus on cultural and political differences that reporters encounter overseas. The emphasis is on how to break out of the bubble that seals off foreign journalists from the people they are covering. This is not a course about covering only diplomacy or international relations. There is a heavy practical component to the course with emphasis on reporting techniques, logistics, selling free-lance pieces and functioning in other cultures.

Business and Economic Reporting

This course will use New York's vibrant arts, media and entertainment industries as our reporting laboratory for exploring basic business concepts, such as reading earnings reports and balance sheets to issues of societal importance, such as media conglomeration and business ethics . Your interests may vary widely, but you will explore this world within a business framework, learning about how to make numbers your friend and explain ideas in a compelling and understandable way. Whether you're writing about hip hop music or the publishing phenomenon of Harry Potter, the newest shelter magazine to hit the newsstands or the difficulties of running the not for profit Public Theatre, you will be guided to ferret out the business and economic angles. W'll range from little dot.com publishing ventures to multi-billion dollar media behemoths. We'll explore the business of the arts, meet a top advertising exec at a major newspaper and grill a media exec who will attempt to fool you with funny numbers. This course assumes basic reporting skills and at least a nodding acquaintance with business, but if you need to get up to speed, you'll be given the necessary readings and assistance to get started. This will be a course of mutual exploration, for instructor and students, as we meet with industry executives, analysts and reporters on the beat. Everyone will get the chance to explore more than one area of interest but also gain more in-depth expertise about one particular business. There will be a substantial amount of reading and much classroom critiquing of student work. Expect to work hard!

The Investigative Project

An examination of investigative reporting through a single subject. Each student will be responsible for one segment of the investigation. The goal is worthy public service journalism. Previous projects included The North River Sewage Treatment Plant; The Water Supply of New York City; Public Education in New York City; The Safety of New York City's Subways and Buses; The Environment of New York City; New York's Sanitation System; The Infrastructure of New York City, and The Health of New York City. Students will learn varied methodologies and techniques from investigators both from within the profession as well as out of it. Students will also deal with public record searching of all sorts--paper and electronic. Those searches will be the seeds for good solid, detailed reportage and research. Students will interview government, legal and law enforcement officials and numerous other sources. Enrollment limited.

Race and Ethnicity in the New America

  • Betty Medsger
  • Mondays: 10 a.m. to noon, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
    Journalism Room 601C

Note: course reorganized since spring 2002.

This course is designed to prepare students to report effectively about race and ethnicity, two very important and sometimes challenging subjects in our society. Attitudes toward race continue to have a strong impact on many aspects of life: personal relationships, neighborhood and community life, school curriculum and teaching, government polices at the local, state and national level, arts and culture, even the nation’s foreign policy.

Communities of all sizes throughout the country are becoming increasingly diverse in their ethnic and racial makeup. Given the demographic trends reported in the 2000 census, the United States will become a country of minorities with no majority during the careers of current journalism students. Despite the importance of race and ethnicity, many stories that involve these subjects go unreported or underreported.

While developing their skills as depth journalists, students in this course will learn how to look for stories that have important racial or ethnic angles, as well as stories that are primarily about race or ethnicity. Because many people, including journalists, find it difficult to talk to people outside their own racial or ethnic group, we will begin the semester with open discussions designed to help us talk more easily about race and ethnicity and talk more easily with people outside our own ethnic or racial group.
The greater awareness students should acquire in the course regarding how to report on race and ethnicity should serve them well on any beat they will cover as a journalist in the United States or abroad.

New York City, one of the most diverse cities in the world, will be the laboratory for assignments. Stories will be written about race and ethnicity in a broad range of areas: health and medicine, arts and culture, K-12 education, higher education, local politics, criminal justice, religion, civil rights, sports, science and technology, immigration, real estate and development, mass media. All will be reported in the five boroughs of the city.

National Affairs Reporting A

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.

National Affairs Reporting B: Underlying Themes

In this section of National Affairs Reporting, the teachers--the Dean of the Journalism School, formerly Washington Correspondent of The New Yorker, and the editor of the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal--will show students how to understand major national news stories in terms of their larger context. The class will give students an awareness of the broadest implications of the news: what ideas about government are at play, what interests are involved, what historical forces are making themselves felt. Reading material for the course will usually include a contemporary work of journalism and several non-journalistic works that are related to it, and the class discussion will focus on establishing the connection between them. The course aims to acquaint students with some of the most important themes in contemporary American politics and government, and to equip them with the skill of figuring out the broad implications of specific stories they will encounter as working journalists.

National Affairs Reporting C: America's Fault Lines

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 the social and economic classes. It examines four areas: Technology, Workplace, Crime, and Warfare. It seeks to penetrate myths and report realities behind the following topics: The Digital Revolution: Divisive or Liberating? American Labor: Dead or Alive? Wrongful Conviction of the Innocent. 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 a report of 1,200 to 2,000 words on each topic (over 16 weeks) to demonstrate reporting results and story telling abilities.

Science Reporting and Writing

Covering science--including medicine and the environment--is an important part of any journalist's beat. This course will familiarize students with today's major science stories, as well as with the philosophical issues raised by scientific and medical research--including bioethics. Students will develop the requisite skills and source base to write critically about any aspect of science or the environment - from statistics or cancer clusters to biodiversity or cosmology. The emphasis of the course will be on getting out into the field and reporting. Trips include visits to the Institute for Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Gardens and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Covering Religion

How does religious faith motivate social activism? This course explores the role religion and faith play in social movements and the impact those movements, in turn, have had on religious denominations.

We shall use the American Civil Rights movements as our point of departure, exploring how Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (among others) helped create the consensus which led to the civil rights bills of the 1960s. We will also examine the explosion of New Age spirituality which has developed since. The class will travel through the American South and possibly the Southwest as we explore the people, places of worship, and rituals which undergird American religious practice.

Randall Balmer, the author of ten books and writer-producer of three PBS documentaries, chairs the religion department at Barnard College, where he teaches courses on American religious history.

June Cross has produced television news and documentaries for the last thirty years. She worked as a staff producer for the PBS series "Frontline" for eight years, and, most recently, served as Executive Producer of a six-part series which traced the arc of the African-American spiritual experience, "This Far by Faith."

Professors Balmer and Cross are currently collaborating on a book and tv documentary examining the African-American roots of the pentecostal movement.

Cultural Affairs Reporting and Writing A

Cultural Affairs Reporting and Writing B

This is a course designed for the aspiring arts writer as well as for those who want to strengthen their skills in covering the arts. The class will address both content and technique. We will focus on how to generate, research and shape different kinds of stories with a view to producing informed and thoughtful writing on the arts. Students will be encouraged to sharpen their critical thinking and to find engaging ways of writing about culture from the cutting edge to the mainstream. They will attend assigned exhibitions and performances and are expected to follow the major arts stories of the day.

We will discuss how to identify credible sources; the art of the interview; how to use quotes; how to provide context; and how to bring scenes and characters to life. Students will also study the strategies and approaches of other writers and apply these lessons to their own work. We will read, discuss and debate. Each student will pitch story ideas in class as well as produce several assignments--one profile, two reviews and two features-- which may range from the impact of hip-hop on comedy to the first amendment controversies surrounding a museum exhibition.

Guest speakers appear regularly throughout the term to provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on key issues shaping the cultural landscape and to offer rare glimpses into their own creative process. (Guests have included Tony Kushner, Russell Simmons and Ric Burns.) Students enrolled in the Tuesday section may occasionally meet on a Monday evening to accommodate guest speakers.

Personal and Professional Style A & B

  • Judith Crist
  • Monday, 1:30pm - 5pm, or Tuesday, 1:30pm - 5pm

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. There are basic assignments and free-choice exercises, with concentration on intra-group and self criticism, and good reporting. 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 emailed in the body of the message to Dean Stumpp, who must receive them by 9am, Friday, November 14, 2003. (No attachments will be opened.)

Book Writing

  • Sam Freedman
  • Monday, 9am - 5pm (Note: The class is closed to new registrants)

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.

The Deadline in Depth

Deadlines can be stressful even for seasoned journalists. But being able to write accurately and well on a short lead time is an essential skill for any reporter -- and one that provides a foundation for the more complex, time-intensive pieces that come later. This course teaches the ins and outs of deadline reporting by exposing students to the sorts of stories general assignment reporters cover on a daily basis: cops, courts, human interest features, breaking news. Often working side-by-side with their counterparts in the city press corps, students will learn how to get the information they need without going down time-wasting dead-ends, how to structure deadline stories, and how to write them compellingly - proving that graceful writing and tight deadlines don't have to be mutually exclusive

Human Rights Reporting

A course focusing on the challenges of reporting human rights abuses, at home and overseas. In this seminar, we will discuss the history of the concept of human rights, and recent innovations in the enforcement of human rights law. Particular stress will be laid on the practical and ethical challenges facing reporters and investigators who cover human rights, in the United States and overseas.

Students will examine and report on international rights abuses, and problems in the New York City region. These may include subjects such as immigrants seeking refugee status, migrants held indefinitely without trial on "secret evidence," police tactics, racial profiling, prison overcrowding, the death penalty, sweatshop labor, and the moral responsibility of multinational business for human rights.

New York City provides the field laboratory for the course, with resources and reporting opportunities including its huge community of immigrants from around the world; the major U.N. agencies and independent human rights advocacy agencies, and the home offices of businesses that must adapt their practices to local attitudes toward labor rights and human rights in other nations.

Required Work: Two major reports - one on an international human rights issue, one on a domestic problem. Deadlines for story concepts, reporting plans, early drafts and the finished versions will be staggered throughout the semester. Editorial meetings with the instructor and in-class discussion of the work-in-progress will be part of the process. A variety of spot exercises will be conducted, to help develop the ability to report quickly and write deftly under deadline pressure.

Covering Latino Communities in New York City

The purpose of this course is to provide students with the history, culture and politics of the fast-growing, rich and diverse Latino community in New York City. The course will give students the framework and resources they need to understand and report on Latinos throughout the five boroughs. We will study the many waves of migration and immigration from the Caribbean, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Central and South America and the local communities that have grown up along the way. We will examine the portrayal of Latinos in the news and entertainment media, as well as the rich art and literature being produced by Latino artists today. Students will cover issues including education, work and labor, housing, immigration, religion, politics arts and culture.

Covering the Youth Beat

  • LynNell Hancock
  • Monday, 10 am - 3:00pm

    Kids who kill. Parents who starve their children. High stakes testing. Police drug raids in middle schools. Kids growing up homeless, or in foster care. Issues surrounding child and family policies are increasingly found on the front pages. They remain some of the most challenging stories for journalists to cover well. Students in this seminar will become adept at navigating the various terrains of education, juvenile justice, poverty, child welfare and youth culture with a fresh sense of context, honesty and nuance. We will examine the ethical minefields of reporting on children, and turn a critical eye toward media coverage of families through the decades. We will try to make sense of the disparity between public perception and the reality of children's lives in NYC through reporting, writing, reading, as well as discussion, guest lectures and field trips. Strong emphasis will be placed on perfecting the art of writing complex news features on sensitive subjects. Students will produce four news features and various news analysis pieces -- all of publishable quality. For the syllabus: www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/children.

Outside Course Seminar

  • Various professors

Individual students who are specially approved by the faculty may opt to take a graduate-level course elsewhere in the university as half of the seminar that they are required to complete. Since other schools within the university usually publish their spring course offerings late, students interested are advised to contact particular departments to find out which courses will be taught in the spring of 2003, by whom, and when. Previous years' course guides may prove to be of some help. Students will be required to fulfill all requirements of that course, including assigned papers and/or examinations. In addition, the student will spend an additional day a week appending a journalistic component to the material covered in the course, doing reporting and journalistic stories, under the direction of a member of the Journalism School faculty. Weekly or bi-weekly articles will be required. The student will receive a total of 6 academic credits: 3 from completing the coursework in the outside elective, and 3 from completing the journalistic work spurred by that coursework.

Media Workshops J6011y

  • Required (6 credits)
  • Journalism Workshops: Thursday and Friday

Please note: full-time students are expected to devote all day Thursday and Friday to their Workshops. The times listed below indicate only the group meeting time of the courses.

I. Newspaper

These two-day workshops involve instruction and experience in editorial aspects of a newspaper operation: planning and editing, reporting and writing, and photography. All work is done under close supervision of faculty instructors.

The Bronx Beat

Bronx Beat is a newspaper with a circulation of about 6,000 copies distributed to Bronx residents, city officials, private sector organizations, editors and writers at New York City's dailies, and Columbia faculty members and students. This is a hands-on opportunity to experience community journalism and learn

about residents' concerns in some of the city's most diverse communities. Students plan, report, write and produce this weekly newspaper that focuses primarily on the South Bronx. Faculty members, including some adjuncts from local newspapers, advise and coach the students and help them edit their stories.

Some students select beats -- such as housing, business, immigration, health care, education, religion, transportation, and public safety -- that they cover all semester, while others work as general assignment reporters. Coverage includes breaking news, enterprise stories and features about the people who live, work and play in the Bronx. Student editors make the assignments and handle layout and copy editing, under the supervision of adjunct instructors. Bronx Beat will sharpen your reporting, writing and editing skills. It will prepare you for newspaper jobs and help you stretch and produce quality journalism. Note:

Students rotate assignments for the paper - from city editors to copy desk, reporting, layout and photography. Each week, some students (usually the key editors) will meet Saturday morning for proofreading. Part-time students are welcome, but they must commit to planning ahead to be able to participate in key meetings and jobs.

Columbia News Service

  • Bruce Porter
  • Class is Thursday from 6:30 to 9 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 thought up, reported and written by students under the guidance of faculty members. The best ones 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 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.

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 six 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.

II. Magazine

Producing a Magazine A

This workshop will produce the fourth issue of The New York Review of Magazines (TNYRM). The purpose of TNYRM , copies of which are available in the library and the 8th floor computer lab, is to describe, analyze, and evaluate the world of magazines -- the world many of you are about to enter (and some of you already inhabit.) Students will write, edit, fact-check and generally take part in all aspects of this publication. We will also publish a companion on-line version of TNYRM. If you are interested in applying you should send a letter (no longer than a page and a half) setting forth at least three story ideas for the magazine, and also any special expertise or interest you have re working on the magazine (photography, copy-editing, production, working on a business plan, etc.) A sample of your best writing is optional. You should submit your letter to Professor Navasky by 5 pm on November 25. The hard copy should be left in his mailbox in room 202 or slipped under his office door, room 802.

Producing a Magazine B

The class will, over the course of the semester, produce a prototype magazine. Students will write, edit, copy-edit, fact-check, in short perform all the editorial functions of a magazine staff. They will work individually and in teams, devising departments, assigning stories, gathering art. Enrollment is limited to 16. A writing sample from the fall must be submitted to Professor Shapiro by 9 am on Nov. 22.

Magazine Writing A

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.

Magazine Writing B

Magazine stories are not just longer newspaper stories. They can and should be deeper and more ambitious--which requires different kinds of reporting and researching skills than newspaper pieces, a greater ability to synthesize material and retest journalistic hypotheses, and then a more thought-out approach to writing, both in tone and structure.

This class will help you learn the tools to dig deeper into stories than you ever have before, and then be able to successfully use the material you have unearthed--not only from reporting and re-reporting, but also from your own thinking and writing--to inform in-depth, narrative prose. It will also explore how magazines work, how magazine projects come to be, how their writers and editors (and sources) survive the long-form process, and how the market for long-form non-fiction is growing and mutating.

At each of our weekly meetings, we will examine and discuss one aspect of magazine writing and culture from a variety of perspectives. We will also analyze one current issue of a weekly or monthly magazine each week, and one entire class will be spent at the offices of a major national magazine. But our primary focus will be on your writing, to help you understand and explore for yourself the differences between standard newspaper-writing forms and the sometimes-equally- standard (but still difficult to master) forms of modern magazine writing. We will workshop several magazine story ideas and queries, then the multiple drafts of an originally-reported (and re-reported) magazine piece of 3500 words, and finish up with strategies for getting that piece published.

Magazine Writing C

Starting with the basic elements of a magazine story, the course will use both readings and writing exercises to explore the use of scenes, anecdotes, dialogue and color. The class will look at various reporting and writing techniques with an eye to developing a style and a personal voice. In addition to regular writing assignments, reading will include classic and current examples of long form literary journalism.

Literary Journalism

This workshop combines long-form writing and reporting with the study of excellent stylists, both journalists who have reached beyond conventional news style to make their writing as compelling and graceful as that of the best novelists (such as Ryszard Kapusckinski, John McPhee, Jane Kramer, Joan Didion) and novelists whose work contains significant journalistic elements (such as Tolstoy, Upton Sinclair, 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.

III. Broadcast

The broadcast faculty offers four workshops for students choosing to concentrate in television or radio. Each of the workshops specializes in one discipline: radio, nightly news, reporting and producing for television magazines, and documentary production.

Nightly News

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.

Television News Magazines

Students report and produce stories, ranging in length from five to ten minutes, designed for the wide range of magazine format programs which broadcast networks now produce. Feature stories, investigative reports and profiles are all encouraged, with the emphasis in each case on substance and compelling storytelling. Students work in small teams, serving as researchers, reporters, producers and editors.

Television Documentary

We will work together to research, report, write and produce one, unified documentary, the subject of which will be designated by the instructors. Our purpose is to simultaneously teach the techniques of the genre and create a professional-quality work, which we hope will air on a cable channel. We are weighing the pros and cons of several story ideas, but students should be aware that we favor an observational, up-close storytelling style that emphasizes character development, a narrative arc that is based on following a real-world process to its logical conclusion, and scrupulous attention to in-depth research and reporting. We will structure the class as a production -company,- with a strong collaborative spirit and evolving responsibilities for all students.

Radio

Students will employ advance radio writing and production techniques in a variety of radio formats. The course will emphasize fully reported, magazine-style radio reports such as those featured most commonly on NPR programs. Students will start with spot news as well as longer news reports (in the 3-5 minute range) and will expand to descriptive news features and narratives. Each will produce a final mini-documentary (6-8 minute range). Production skills cover the gamut of sound-gathering, multi-layered audio mixes and on-air program production. The course will produce regular newscasts, half-hour and hour programs, and there will be special emphasis on webcasting as a new radio frontier. Guests will be drawn from public and commercial news networks, independent documentary producers and the emerging field of radio webcasting.

IV. New Media

New Media Workshop

The New Media Workshop combines traditional reporting and writing skills with the best of online journalism. Students will learn to report and create stories using new media - including text, photography, audio and video. 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, write and produce several stories over the course of the semester. The class meets in formal training sessions on Thursday evenings from 6-9PM and, on many weeks, all day Friday. In addition, reporting will be required on most Thursdays. Industry guests will provide feedback and direction for projects. Priority will be given to students who have taken New Media Issues and New Media Skills, but others with an interest in online journalism may also apply (taking catch-up technical classes in late January). To see the work from past workshops, please visit NYC24.

Electives

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).

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

J6007y Sports Journalism

There is much more to sports these days than who won, who lost and why. There are complex questions involving the sociology of sport, the psychology of sport, the business of sport and perhaps most important, the ethics of sport. Amid all this turmoil is the ever-nagging question about the role of the sports department in the mass media: Does it do its job, and how well? What is expected of the modern-day sportswriter, sportscaster and sports editor? This course covers the basics of sports journalism as it pertains to newspapers, magazines and television, but goes far beyond it into every major issue in sports.

J6036y History of American Journalism

This course explores the cultural and social history of journalism in America. Using a variety of readings and viewings -- from Tom Paine to Tom Wolfe, from the war correspondent to the "Sabbath gasbag," from the tabloid to the documentary -- we explore the development of the values, practices, and social roles that cluster around the institution of journalism. Topics include the changing idea of what "news" means and what a "journalist" does; the impact of new technologies for gathering and disseminating the news; popular expectations about the duties and uses of the press; and the business of journalism. We also consider how the press has itself been a significant actor (for better or worse) in war, reform movements, political exercises, and other events.

J6076y Broadcast News Management

This course explores the management structures, procedures, policies, and goals of a variety of broadcast news operations, including those of local stations, cable, and broadcast networks. It delves into the mechanics of an industry in almost constant change: business models, technology, relationships with news consumers, and the impact of increasing complexity and competition. Such change puts a premium on management, planning, and standards; all of which are essential to creating a unique and differentiated presence in the news marketplace. The course analyzes why broadcast journalism operates the way it does in the real world and looks toward how it is likely to develop in the future. Taught by broadcasters who have worked in virtually every phase of local and network television, the course assists students in understanding the conditions under which they will be working and managing.

J6083y Television Reporting and Production

The class will explore new and experimental ways that television journalism can better serve print professionals and broadcast professionals by the use of cross-platform projects.

Using models such as the cooperation between The New York Times and PBS: Frontlines on the Lackawana Sleeper Cell, various polling ventures by papers and television networks and of particular interest, the recent joint project by ABC News and Time Magazine to explore life inside Iraq. The project used three television correspondents and two print correspondents to try to get a realistic look at everyday life in that country, outside the glare of attacks and politics. The resulting stories appeared across numerous ABC News programs and their web site, and a number of stories appeared in Time Magazine and on their web site. All five correspondents appeared across the various platforms.

We will examine what about these kinds of projects works and what doesn't. We will examine the stylistic and story telling arts in television journalism and their similarities and differences with print methods. We will also experiment with new cross-discipline approaches. The goal is to learn and to develop methods that make the same stories work across multiple platforms.

J6092y Photojournalism

Note: This section is open only to students who have not previously taken "Photo Skills."

This is an intro to Photojournalism, a course for students interested in developing their skills as photo-reporters. Topics include basic camera skills---the use of f-stop and shutter speed, metering, and flash. Introductory use of Adobe Photoshop, scanning, and digital printing will also be taught. Class sessions are devoted to lectures, demonstrations, and critiques; assignments are shot outside of class, and require a flexible schedule. Photo editors and photographers will visit the class to show and discuss their work. Film and some equipment provided.

J6092y Advanced Photojournalism

Note: This section is open only to students who have completed "Photo Skills" or by permission on the instructor.

Photo-reporting in New York City. Lectures, demonstrations, and hands on practice designed to clarify the technical aspects of photography while encouraging the development of individual style. Topics include camera handling, film selection, and the use of shutter speed, f-stop, exposure meters, flash. Weekly assignments from the AP daybook, and the opportunity to contribute photographs to The Bronx Beat and CNS. Emphasis in class on individual critiques and the practical issues of working as a photojournalist. Guest speakers show and discuss their work. Film and some equipment provided.

J6108y Investigative Techniques

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.

J6109y Narrative Writing A

This course will focus on the elements of story-telling, including structure and writing techniques, plot, conflict and character development, use of quotation and dialogue. Students will be expected to have read my book, "Follow the Story." This course will emphasize written exercises, in-class discussion and visits from successful narrative writers. I hope to include more time for one-on-one student teacher sessions. While the techniques are applicable to writing of almost any length, including television and documentary film scripts, participants will be expected to produce a feature-length narrative story. The primary requirement is an enthusiasm for story-telling.

J6109y Narrative Writing B

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.

J6112y Techniques of Feature Writing A

Spend the semester poring over, discussing, reporting, writing and (not least) rewriting the kind of vivid features that enliven magazines and the better newspapers and that readers actually remember the day after they appear. Learn to incorporate scenes, characters, dialogue, description and other elements of compelling storytelling into your work. Experiment with several kinds of pieces: profiles, issues, researched essays. Grasp principles of structure. Improve your prose style or perish in the attempt. Embrace the Doctrine of Infinite Perfectibility. The workload includes three major stories, plus proposals and revisions, along with a considerable amount of reading. Individual conferences with the editor/instructor are scheduled through the semester.

J6112y Techniques of Feature Writing B

This course will require reporting, writing, and seriously rewriting three 1,200-1,500 word feature stories. We will focus on the following themes: common errors (overwriting, awkward rhythms and tone); finding strong angles or controlling ideas to structure our work; shaping narrative that flows smoothly; crafting authentic description and color; choosing and editing quotes; and using language creatively, in unexpected ways. Most of all, we will learn to love endless tinkering with our copy. What makes any given magazine story stand out? We will spend a great deal of time in this course reading, thinking, and talking to guest speakers about what makes writing powerful.

J6114y Analytic Journalism

Students will handle a number of projects involving state-of-the-art techniques for finding, retrieving, and analysing data. They will then combine their analyses with interviewing of live sources to turn their projects into approximately six writing assignments. Typical projects might involve crime reporting, Federal Election Commission data, or the federal or city budget. There will also be one larger class project.

Students should expect to spend three hours a week in class, plus another five or six hours per week working in the computer lab or at home on their own computer, in addition to normal reporting time. Students who have not taken a Skills class in computer-assisted reporting will have to spend some extra time at the start of the semester catching up; the exact amount of time will vary for each student and will probably range from 3 to 12 hours.

J6115y The Critic as Journalist and Essayist

How do effective critics think about the tension in their work between factual authority and passion? About voice? How may beginning journalists usefully think about critical reportage and essay, usually the preserve of highly accomplished writers? What room does journalism in its various forms provide for critical reportage and essay? How do critics think about their roles, responsibilities, freedoms, limits?

Readings will display the critic in various modes--reporter, ideologue, aesthete, historian, artist, craftsman, crank--and show how larger themes, occasion and subtexts stretch and test critical forms.

Assignments: three 750-word exercises and one 1500 word paper. The final paper will ask students to undertake independent reporting or research.

Note: Students who wish to apply for one of the nine Journalism places in this 18-student interdepartmental course given with the School of the Arts Writing division should submit a one-page sample of their critical writing to Michael Janeway in 201-G by noon on Wednesday, November 26.

J6117y Magazine Editing

Many journalists want to write for magazines. Some consider becoming editors. Still others think about starting their own. For all these students, this course will analyze how magazines are made -- from the creation of an editorial vision to what an editor does day by day. Aspects of business and production will also be addressed. For a required final project, each student will choose a magazine to report on, applying the course contents to assess the publication's strengths and weaknesses.

J6118y News Editing

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.

J6133y Graphics in the Newsroom

Over the past decade, newspaper and magazines have been emphasizing the importance of visual graphics to relay information to readers. Election coverage, national and international affairs, science, sports and culture news are increasingly enriched by information graphics. They are often the first thing a reader will look at after the headline and photos.

New reporters who have exposure to informational graphics have a great advantage when looking for new jobs and pitching stories because they can offer story packages rather than words alone. More and more often in newsrooms, a story with an excellent graphic or map or photo will edge out other stories for page one.

This course will teach you, as reporters and editors, to approach a story from the standpoint of a visual journalist.

J6145y Covering Ideas

In the course, students will assume the roles of staff writers in the "Ideas" section of a newsmagazine. The challenge here is to track the ideas -- intellectual, scholarly, cultural, behavioral, etc. -- that are coming to light, having an impact, and encountering opposition in today's world, and then to find concrete and engaging ways of writing about them. You will also be asked to identify areas where you've found yourself blocked to getting answers to questions you have about how the world behaves (linked if possible to current events), often because of the impression you have that the answers you seek would be of a forbidding complexity (since you're just a layman). In those cases, we'll turn those 'curiosity-based' questions into pitches, then into assignments, and finally into stories directed to a layman's understanding.

We'll be doing critical readings and discussions of a good deal of journalistic pieces that succeed to varying degrees in these endeavors, to analyze their strategies. We will be reading as well in more obscure places - e.g. scholarly journals and public policy tracts - in order to glean material.

As powerful as ideas are, in their explanatory power and the way they govern our lives, they don't reside as such in the physical world and are thus recalcitrant to most forms of conventional reportage. We will all be readers for each other as we learn how to do this kind of writing well.

J6155y The Art of Radio Reporting

The goal of this course is to show students how to be enterprising and creative in reporting for Radio, using all aspects of arts and letters. There will be discussion, lecture and exercises that demonstrate how these kinds of stories have their own process of play-by-play just like sports and even breaking news. In addition to polishing presentation, producing, writing, voicing, and interviewing skills, there will be field trips and visits with arts world newsmakers and personalities. Four completed pieces are required throughout the semester drawn from various types: feature, commentary, interview, review, obituary. And, to demonstrate convergence, re-purposing, and, most importantly for journalists in an increasingly competitive arena that encompasses staff as well as free-lance positions, how to keep your work yours, own your stories and not lose them to someone else for another medium, primarily from Print to Radio. Arts, Letters, Entertainment and Pop Culture overlap in all areas and subject matters, e.g., politics & elections, science, religion, sports, business, travel, emergency, and disaster stories.

J6106 Opinion Writing

Has opinion writing entered an era of crisis? With the rise of the internet and talk radio, virtually everyone now has a public forum. The nature and function of critical expression have been transformed -- democratized but, arguably, debased. This course is an inquiry into the role of opinion in contemporary society, a study of the history of critical writing, and a workshop in the seemingly endangered art of opinion journalism. Students will read and discuss touchstone works by past masters of the discipline (James Baldwin, H.L. Mencken, George Orwell) as well as efforts of its current practitioners (Joan Didion, Margo Jefferson, James Wood, each of whom may be among the guest speakers). Through their own writing for the class, moreover, students will learn the discipline of critical thinking and the craft of building and supporting arguments. There are four writing assignments, all to be drawn from social, political, and cultural events of the day. Every piece of writing will be critiqued in class and edited by the instructor. Revisions are required. One class will take place off-campus, during a story meeting in the editorial offices of a New York-based publication.

J6157y Radio Documentary

This course teaches the art and techniques of documentary journalism. Students explore documentary storytelling through the use of strong writing, compelling voices, sound, scene and narrative. Radio is the ideal medium for the documentary; at its best, radio combines the power and immediacy of great documentary films with the intimacy and poetry of a New Yorker-style magazine piece. This course combines instruction in advanced writing, sound-gathering and multi-layered audio mixes. Guest lectures and discussions will focus on various stylistic and ethical issues related to documentary work.

J6310y Politics and the Press in America

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.