Not all courses are offered every semester. All courses carry 4 points per term.

The Law and Mass Communication
G54.0011
Discusses exceptions to the First Amendment language that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” Subjects covered include prior restraint of the press, libel, invasion of privacy, news-gathering problems, shield laws and protection of sources, free press and fair trial, and broadcast regulations by the FCC.

Press Ethics
G54.0012
Explores the ethical questions facing working journalists. Focuses on specific cases, both real and hypothetical. Through readings, papers, and class discussion, students analyze the ethical problems raised by these cases and develop their own systems for making ethical decisions.

Minority Perspectives/Minority Presence and the Media
G54.0015
With the Kerner Commission Report as a backdrop, this course examines the portrayals and perspectives of “minorities” in today’s media, looking at issues of representation, access, and power.

History of the News
G54.0018
How have people traditionally understood “news”? What assumptions are built into this form of communication? How do changes in the medium through which news is exchanged from speech to writing, to print, to broadcasting affect its content and perspective? These questions are approached through anthropological research, classical literature, and historical texts, as well as through the formal history of journalism. Students are encouraged to draw conclusions about the nature and logic of news that can be applied to modern news systems.

Foreign Posting: New York City
G54.0050
This course focuses on the necessary skills for a foreign posting in our time—that assignment being New York City. Each student picks a foreign newspaper and acts as its New York “apprentice-correspondent.” In order to become acquainted with the challenges of the job, students meet correspondents posted in New York and analyze stories and books on international affairs by Pulitzer-winning journalists. The course also looks at the history of foreign reporting and compares news coverage in non-U.S. papers and has the benefit of the instructor’s 16 years as New York correspondent for the Italian daily La Repubblica.

Current Problems in Mass Communication
G54.1019
Topical issues in journalism. Subjects vary: media criticism, perspectives on race and class, global journalism, and others.

Writing, Research, and Reporting Workshop I, II
G54.1021, 1022   Workshop I is taken the first semester; Workshop II, the second semester.
Provides a foundation in the principles and practices of basic news reporting. Includes lectures on reporting principles and techniques, study of specialized areas of reporting, and completion of increasingly challenging in-class assignments. Students use New York City as a laboratory to gather and report actual news events outside the classroom. A special section of Workshop I is offered for students in the cultural reporting and criticism concentration. A special section of Workshop II is offered for students in the Business and Economic Reporting Program.

The Journalistic Tradition
G54.1023
Students read from the works of some of the best English and American journalists, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Margaret Fuller, Charles Dickens, Stephen Crane, H. L. Mencken, Ernest Hemingway, Edward R. Murrow, Lillian Ross, James Baldwin, and Tom Wolfe. Special attention is paid to tone, voice, and imagery and to theories of reporting. Some sections are tailored to specific themes.

Net Culture and New Media: Issues in Digital Journalism
G54.1025
Students delve deep into the social, legal, and ethical issues generating buzz in digital culture, from Napster to hackers, online gender-bending to weblogging, or “blogging.” Past guest speakers have included Net guru Clay Shirky, Steven Johnson (Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software), and editors from Nerve and The Smoking Gun. Students write several papers, which are published in the department webzine, ReadMe.

Television Reporting I
G54.1040  Prerequisite: G54.1070.
This beginning course introduces students to field reporting. Students learn how to develop story ideas, write to picture, structure a story, interview people, and gather the audio and visual elements essential to television reporting. As the course develops, detailed script analysis is combined with in-depth discussions of the completed pieces. A six-hour lab for the fieldwork complements the four-hour lecture. Students shoot and edit their work in teams of two to three students. They mainly use small DV cameras and linear editing systems as well as a few nonlinear editing systems. Completed pieces are aired on NYU Tonight, a live weekly newscast.

Literary Journalism
G54.1050
A course for ambitious writers who want to learn to read the way professional writers read, explicating the structure and language of well-crafted narratives and learning how to apply those lessons and techniques to their own work. Close readers and careful thinkers are wanted.

Topics in Financial Accounting, Financial Markets, and Corporate Finance
G54.1060  Prerequisite: enrollment in the Business and Economic Reporting Program or special permission.
Provides a foundation for students who intend to become journalists covering business and financial issues. Students study accounting language and concepts and learn how to read and analyze the financial statements issued by corporations. They learn how to use these financial statements to detect problems and assess the financial health of an enterprise. The course also covers the financial markets and the financing tools available to corporations in need of capital.

Television Newscast
G54.1070
Instruction in writing and producing the news for broadcast and writing on deadline. The class writes and produces a television newscast.

Reporting New York City
G54.1152  Prerequisite: G54.1021.
With New York City as a backdrop, students familiarize themselves with the range of issues affecting urban America, including race relations, housing, education, mass transportation, and the availability of city services. The workings of City Hall and municipal politics are also explored. Students interview government officials, cover press conferences, and report on citywide elections.

Social Impact: Reporting How Corporations Affect Their Communities
G54.1161  Prerequisite: enrollment in the Business and Economic Reporting Program or special permission.
Using a case study approach, students explore the significant impact that corporations have on community life. Analysis includes both the costs (e.g., pollution, job dislocations, unsafe products) and the benefits (e.g., wealth creation, innovation, employment) of corporate activities. Writing assignments help students master the difficult task of covering such issues, which often become the focus of deep conflict among interest groups. The goal is to provide insight and perspective to students who will become journalists covering similar issues.

Radio Reporting
G54.1171  Prerequisite: G54.1070.
Students learn to cover different types of news events and issues for radio newscasts. They write and record reports, interview newsmakers on tape, file reports from the field, select and edit taped actualities, and write copy to use with the tape in newscasts. Sufficient instruction in audio production and announcing is included to enable students to produce their own reports.

Television Reporting II
G54.1172  Prerequisite: G54.1040.
This intermediate second-semester course is run like a local news operation. The students work individually as reporters some weeks and as crew other weeks. They cover beats and do short investigative and enterprise stories as well as cover breaking news and NYU-related stories that air weekly on NYU Tonight. A three-hour editorial meeting provides the time to pitch and plan stories as well as critique finished pieces. Shooting and editing are done as needed with an open schedule. Students have full access to the DV equipment and editing systems throughout the week. Students edit their in-depth pieces on the Final Cut Pro nonlinear editing system.

Advanced TV Reporting
G54.1175  Prerequisites: G54.1070 and G54.1172.
Students produce in-depth newsmagazine pieces that strengthen their reporting and stylistic skills. The class works as a production team and holds editorial meetings every week. Students have the freedom to produce their stories according to their own schedules outside of class. Students have access to digital and beta cameras and edit on nonlinear systems.

Science Writing
G54.1180   Prerequisite: enrollment in the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program or special permission.
Covers methods of popularizing scientific, technical, and medical information for the mass media with emphasis on producing work that meets the standards of professional publication or broadcast.

The Cultural Conversation
G54.1181  Prerequisite: enrollment in the cultural reporting and criticism concentration or special permission.
Acquaints students with a broad view of culture and of cultural journalism as an ongoing public conversation, while providing an introduction to the basic concepts and practice of cultural criticism. Emphasizes the connections between aesthetic and social issues.

Specialized Reporting
G54.1182  Prerequisite: G54.1021.
A variety of specialized reporting courses is offered on a rotating basis. Following is a partial list: Investigative Reporting, Sports Reporting, Reporting the Arts, Reporting the Workplace, Photojournalism, Writing Social Commentary, News Bureau, Long-Form Nonfiction, Visual Thinking, and the Journalism of Ideas.

Critical Survey
G54.1184  Prerequisite: enrollment in the cultural reporting and criticism concentration or special permission.
Teaches students how to write arts criticism that combines clear, vivid prose and a distinctive individual voice with close analysis of specific works in such media as music, literature, art, movies, dance, and theatre. Surveys late 19th- and 20th-century history of criticism.

Reporting on Social Worlds
G54.1186
Focuses on developing the in-depth reporting skills needed to depict social and cultural milieus with accuracy and power. Students examine the problems and challenges of reporting on social worlds created by identities, places, occupations, institutions, and interests.

Medical Writing
G54.1187  Prerequisite: enrollment in the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program or special permission.
Provides a solid basis for understanding many of the elements involved in covering medicine, including the biology of cancer, environment-related illness, epidemiology, and the precepts of sound medical research and peer review. Students are required to write several stories from press releases, conferences, and developed interviews.

Environmental Reporting
G54.1188  Prerequisite: enrollment in the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program or special permission.
Designed to train students to write balanced, informative articles about environmental issues and alert them to the special problems reporters face covering a beat that is often highly charged and highly politicized. For this reason, the investigative aspects of environmental reporting are emphasized.

The Online Magazine
G54.1191  Skills course.
Combines an advanced course in digital journalism with the experience of being on the staff of a working webzine, ReadMe, the department’s student-run online magazine about new media and Net culture. With the professor acting as executive editor, students assume masthead positions from managing editor to marketing director. As well, every class member builds an online clip file by writing articles for the magazine. Students receive course credit for their work on ReadMe.

Magazine Writing Workshop
G54.1231  Prerequisite: G54.1021.
Teaches the practical skills required of a nonfiction magazine writer, as well as how to focus an article for a particular market. Emphasis is on producing pieces that both inform and entertain through the careful use of language and the cultivation of an effective, powerful style. Each student writes a magazine-length article of publishable quality.

Topics in Cultural Journalism
G54.1281  Prerequisites: enrollment in the cultural reporting and criticism concentration or special permission, G54.1181, and G54.1184.
Focuses on a broad cultural theme, allowing students to pursue a variety of interests. Students read and discuss relevant works of cultural journalism, explore an aspect of the topic in depth, and produce a substantial writing project.

Fieldwork in Journalism
G54.1290  Prerequisite: permission of the department.
Students who have completed more than half the required courses may receive permission to intern with area publications or broadcast stations. Their work is evaluated by executives and editors of the cooperating news organizations.

Directed Reading
G54.1299
A student works with one professor on a substantial project combining readings with in-depth writing.

Science Survey I, II
G54.2000, 2001  Prerequisite: enrollment in the Science and Environmental Reporting Program or special permission.
This two-semester course, team-taught by scientists and a science writer, examines several key scientific, technological, and environmental problem areas from the different perspectives of the scientist and the journalist. Topics may vary yearly but typically include nutrition, recombinant DNA, global warming, energy systems and sources, space flight, biology of cancer, AIDS, and toxic wastes and their disposal. Students prepare background material and write a news story about each topic at the end of its segment.

*See the Course Listings page for fall and spring offerings for first-, second-, and third-semester graduate students to get a sense of typical offerings. GloJo sponsors the course Foreign Posting: New York City (G54.0050), which is recommended but not required.

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