This course explores intelligent design, stem cells, drug discovery, reproductive rights, FDA approval process, global warming, urban health policy, medicare and medicaid, intellectual property, technology and privacy, science and the budget, science and the courts.

An example to make this course concrete: Like any neighborhood, Brooklyn's Park Slope has its issues: There is frantic development on its once low-rise western side. There is a growing grocery-store rivalry. There are the yuppies in their brownstones, the twentysomethings in their shared apartments, the old-timers who resent the arrivistes, and the lesbians who have created their own thriving community. There are also the teens, the offspring of the yuppies, whose Park Slope is far different from the grownups'.

Any one of these broadly defined "neighborhoods" may be grist for a great story. In this course, we will scout out such possibilities throughout Manhattan, perhaps the most fertile journalistic turf in the world. Thinking hard about what makes for rich articles, we will select one such neighborhood for each student, for which that student will essentially become the beat reporter, the correspondent. Each student will first steep himself or herself in that neighborhood, researching its past, walking its streets, interviewing its inhabitants and mining its nooks and crannies for feature stories, profiles and trend pieces.

Experience the world of business news first-hand and write about it! During class, go on group field assignments with your professor to cover everything from the day's action at the New York Stock Exchange to a real-life look at Steinway Piano's factory in Queens or a movie studio in midtown Manhattan, and so much more. This class is all about getting real-life reporting experience at fun and interesting local businesses and writing about them in captivating detail with great color, quotes and anecdotes. And learn to report the stories that move the financial markets: key economic reports, mergers & acquisitions and quarterly corporate earnings -- in clear, simple and entertaining language. Sharpen these skills and become a better candidate for jobs at business newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and financial news TV networks, including CNBC and Bloomberg. The business beat can't be beat, so join it!

Faith: It's arguably the most powerful driving force in the world today. It's also compelling local news in New York City, when Sikh subway workers fight City Hall for the right to wear turbans, Harlem churches push for a living wage or mosque attendees debate the validity of female imams. Each student will select a beat -- one religion in NYC today (Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism, etc.); or a geographic area (religious life on the Lower East Side, religion in Chinatown, immigrant religious communities of Astoria).

Whether you're based in Paris or Los Angeles, Beijing or Wyoming, covering a geographic beat is a unique experience because you need the confidence and skills to write about - everything. For this class, our territory is the world situated south of 14th Street. Each of you will be based in a specific neighborhood, where you'll cover a wide range of stories. Whether you're reporting on crime or culture, politics or hot parties, you'll learn what it takes to parachute into a new locale and find your bearings. This class will unleash your inner adventurer by strengthening your interviewing/writing abilities while you're developing a reportorial voice. Guest speakers and field trips will be essential to our journey.

This course will examine the parallel world of undocumented New Yorkers and the laws and policies that affect them. How do we report on people, communities and issues that exist outside of established institutions and bureaucracies but affect life in New York City and in the U.S. every day? No matter what city you live or work in today, immigration is affecting you. New York City has one of the most diverse communities in the world, with new immigrants from the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. This is the perfect place to learn about these communities and how to report about them fully and fairly. Through class work, guest speakers, and field trips to different neighborhoods, we will learn how to report on diverse immigrant communities and immigration issues. Students will research, report and write news stories for publication. Multi-media projects are welcome. Required texts will include: Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, by Juan Gonzalez.

What makes a television story powerful, provocative, and meaningful? How can journalists use video and sound to tell stories that can't be captured in print alone? These are theoretical questions best answered by practical experience. From the mechanics of video photography and editing, to the nuance of script writing and on-camera performance, students in this course will be immersed in a hands-on introduction to television story production. In groups and as individuals, students in this class will use New York City's 5 boroughs as a canvas on which to paint vivid portraits of places, people and issues that might otherwise be overlooked. Taught by a professional on-camera television reporter, students will also get an insider's look at the broadcast news industry. Get ready for a fun, challenging introduction to the exciting, artful world of video storytelling.

In this class we will cover how to research, write, report and produce news stories for various television outlets. Tape assignments will emphasize story structure and journalistic value. Your final project will be on a topic of your choice, with approval from the professor. Reading assignments will require written responses. Working in teams students will produce four field reports on community news, health, personal profiles and the final project in an area of student interest. Class lectures will teach the craft of TV reporting, thinking visually, field problem solving as well as the role of journalists in democracy.

In On The Road in the City, students will go on a series of journeys throughout the city in search of snippets of ordinary life that say something extraordinary about the city and humanity. In the process, students will be in pursuit of the seeds of cultural change. The mission and challenge will be to present those seeds and portraits of life with prose that gives the reader a sense of making the same discoveries. You will also read three books that employ "road" journalism in different ways. The semester will culminate in your own major project that will require you to journey with a social or cultural world of New York.

This course will review the history, literature and journalism of this legendary neighborhood that has undergone dramatic change over the past three decades. Students will develop story ideas and engage in a semester-long research and reporting project that will culminate in a 2,500-word article.

This course will pursue the art of sports writing, at the highest level. This means embracing all the tenets of good writing and strong journalism: Intelligent, pinpoint reporting, dogged attention to detail, perceptive news judgment and illuminating narrative. We will purge our copy of cliché (the bane of too much sports journalism) infusing it instead with original ideas and a fresh sensibility. We will pursue the craft in its many forms — from game stories, to features, to investigative pieces, to stories that exquisitely detail the many processes that lead to performing at the top of the field — be it hitting a golf ball, turning a double axel in figure skating, or say, the manufacturing of a baseball bat.

Critically, through our discussions and assignments, we will examine the myriad societal issues that play a role in sports, both historically and at present, from the Little League to the Big Leagues. These include the role of race, women in sports, unions and free agency, corporate ownership, the influence of Madison Avenue, the internet, the growth of organizations like ESPN, steroids and other drugs, and the nature of competition. From this complex set of dynamics has arisen the modern athlete, and for that matter, the modern sports journalist.

This course is for students who want to try their hand at investigative reporting in New York City, learning to mine documents and official records for exclusive stories.

Mostly, this is a hands-on skills course. The emphasis will be on fieldwork. You will be expected to come up with strong ideas for investigative stories or projects, find the sources you need, do the reporting to back up your idea and write the story in a clear, compelling and fair fashion, adhering to the highest standards of accuracy and objectivity. The story ideas must be New York City based and doable in a semester’s time.

We will cover the different types of sources used in a typical investigative project, including human sources, documents and electronic databases. We will discuss where to find such sources, how to utilize them to maximum advantage and how to organize your material.

This course is designed to give aspiring journalists a fresh look at government. But it isn't a civics or political science course. It's a journalism course tailored to give student reporters who want a primer on how government is organized and how it operates so they can succeed on virtually any beat. There are no dumb questions, and the class discussions can be as simple or complex as the student-reporters need them to be.

You won't learn how to cover government by studying it. You will learn how to cover government by doing it with the help of an instructor with the better part of two decades experience covering politics and government at the municipal, state and federal levels.

In previous classes, students have learned the rudiments of story selection, writing, and shooting. This class advances their skills, with the added pressure of meeting real deadlines; i.e., producing pieces that air on a live weekly broadcast. Stories will gradually grow in complexity over the semester.

Prerequisites: None

Why do we think that way? What do we mean by "women" and "men"? If you were a visiting anthropologist from Mars, how could you use our culture's media to understand our ideas about gender? Women & the Media is a collaborative seminar that examines the complex relationship (or different contradictory relationships) between those humans we call "women" and those forms of discourse we call "media." We will consider women both as subjects and objects, as artists and models, as creators of "media" in its many forms and as media's creations. What does our culture's "media" tell us about how we read gender? What, if anything, does our gender tell us about our readings of "media"? Student participation in this seminar is key: students are expected to attend all sessions, to complete all the reading (there's lots of reading!), to participate actively in discussion, and to lead one of the class sessions themselves. Leading a class means opening the day's conversation with a presentation, critiquing and elaborating on the assigned reading, bringing in additional relevant material, and suggesting questions or issues that seem particularly interesting or troublesome. The purpose of the course is to develop our critical and self-critical faculties as journalists, media critics, consumers of media, and women or men; to think clearly, challenge our pet assumptions, and have fun.

Prerequisites: Foundations, Inquiry or Instructor Permission

Demographics alone suggest that America is a different thing than it was just a few years ago. A shifting racial and ethnic makeup has cast the discussion of how news organizations cover minorities in a near-holographic glow, ever-changing. It is the purpose of this lecture course to dissect and understand the constellation of factors that influence coverage, including the Civil Rights movement, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the growing disparity between haves and have-nots, politics, ethics, economics and the mores of the modern print, broadcast and internet newsrooms. We will examine the myriad ways that people, places and whole issues are tagged with labels and become caricatures. We will move beyond conventional wisdom, beyond simply finding fault, to achieve our most important goal -- to arrive at ideas and solutions for richer, more illuminating and precise coverage.

Learning from The Best To Be The Best is a survey of some of the most entertaining and well-written literary journalism of the last two centuries. We will read these articles and book excerpts carefully - "deep reading," it is called - to discover how good writers take basic journalism and enliven it with literary technique. We want to catalog as much of that technique and structure as we can so that we can "steal it," appropriate the devices for our own work. Students will work in teams; each week a team will "present" the readings and incite a discussion with the rest of the class. There will be some three to five formal academic papers in which students will be asked to demonstrate their understanding of the material, and there will be a number of "creative" assignments as well. The main text for the course is an excellent anthology of non-fiction: The Art of Fact by Kerrane and Yagoda.

In this course, students will explore the visions of American social, cultural and political life and upheaval by way of the travelogue. We will read four major pieces of on the road writing and students will be required to write a short essay on each book. In addition, students will be required to select a writer—not on the list—and perform a major explication of the writer's "on the road" work. The final product will be an oral presentation and written paper. We will read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed; William Least's Heat Moon and Blue Highways; John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, In Search of America, and Walt Whitman's Memoranda During War.

Pick up the newspaper or turn on the news, and you cannot help seeing stories about messy collisions between science and religion. Yet for all the attention these issues are getting, the coverage is usually shallow and misleading.

In this course, we will delve into some deeply cleaving topics in contemporary American society, including "intelligent design" theory, the use of embryonic stem cells, the impact of prayer on healing, and the role of genes in sexual preference. We will hear from prominent scientists, religious leaders and journalists immersed in these controversies, and will read and watch their work. We will discuss ways to improve coverage, and will practice what we preach by producing at least one reported story on a science/religion issue.

If the press monitors the powers that be, who keeps a vigilant eye on the fourth estate, a power unto itself? The "beat," in this seminar course, is the newsmedia themselves. In "Lapdogs," we delve deep into the issues and ideas that have engaged critics of the newsmedia throughout the modern era, from I.F. Stone to Ben Bagdikian, Robert McChesney to Noam Chomsky, Eric Alterman to Jack Shafer, Gloria Steinem to Arianna Huffington. More profoundly, we deconstruct their analytical methods and lay bare their agendas, critiquing the critics. This course will involve a heavy writing load, a significant amount of which will incorporate both academic argument and journalistic reportage

This course will cover the history of the World Wide Web as a collaboration and publishing platform that sits on top of the Internet. It will review the major innovations and disruptions that have come to the media world and to journalism as a result of the Web's rise. Introductions will be made to the major thinkers, writers and inventors in Web culture. Recent directions the Web has taken (also called Web 2.0) will be studied for clues to the future. Students will choose an editorial or information web site to study in depth and thereby test what they learned from their reading.

The field of media criticism is comprised of a variety of theories and methodologies. Our investigation of them will focus on some of the dominant critical perspectives that have contributed to our understanding of media and its role in society. This course is designed to familiarize you with the basic vocabulary and concepts used in the criticism of different types of media texts and products. We have three basic objectives before us in this course: 1) To become familiar with a number of highly influential and important theoretical approaches to media criticism, and with the terms and concepts associated with them. 2) To develop an understanding of how these theoretical "frameworks" and their related concepts have been used to analyze and understand media texts and culture. 3) To begin to be able to adopt and adapt these frameworks and their central concepts in our own analyses of media texts and products.

Journalism is often the first step towards a life of professional storytelling. Newspaper stories, magazine pieces, scripts, books, ad copy, radio and TV writing, are all based on solid journalistic principle. With that in mind, this course has one goal: teach the basic structure of first person writing. Emphasis is on reporting, then telling what you saw with clarity. We will focus on cutting the fat out of writing, getting to the bone, the nub, by learning to work the finite details of what you report -- what you actually see or think you see -- into a story that has length, power, and accuracy, told from your perspective.

No computers in this class. No iPods, no taping lectures, no slam poetry, no meandering first person accounts. Bring a pencil and a yellow legal pad. Any motivated student with good pair of walking shoes and an interest in writing is welcome. Students will be expected to wander the city as reporters with specific assignments, then come back and write about what they have experienced. Reading list includes Dispatches by Micheal Herr, Beyond the Game, by Gary Smith, and A Nietzsche Reader translated by R.J. Hollingdale, and a Marvel comic book to be selected later.

A course that blends the practical aspects of technical editing with the critical thinking and craftsmanship needed to structure and polish stories till they shine. If you love to tweak a single sentence until it is absolutely clear, true and elegant, and enjoy deconstructing a feature story to truly understand how it was shaped, this is the class for you! The first half of the semester will focus on the micro elements of editing: from proofreading to punctuation, to grammar and usage. The second half of the semester will focus on the macro elements of editing: from line editing to cutting meaty stories in half to fit the space. Publication tone, house voice and writer's voice will be discussed in depth. Students will also gain experience writing headlines and captions. Other assignments include editing the interview, editing humor pieces, and re-structuring articles that just don't work. Students will learn how to think like editors and shape and tweak stories analytically as well as technically.

Top editors from the best magazines will speak to the class about navigating a career in magazines and working one's way up the masthead. Prof. Jill Dearman developed the in-house Style Guide for book publishers Simon and Schuster. She has edited film reviews for Video Hound, TV Guide, and the Video Sourcebook. As an arts and culture reporter Dearman's stories have been published in New York Daily News, Time Out New York, Punk and numerous other publications. Dearman's literary essays about New York City have recently appeared in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood.

The opinion (or Op Ed) column, serious or humorous, is a form of literary journalism whose goal is to enlighten readers on a particular issue, and to sway them toward a specific point of view. These essays are exciting to write, as well as stimulating and often great fun to read. They appear in newspapers and magazines and are also found on TV, radio, and the Internet. We will look at outstanding examples by some of the best and most popular writers, see what makes them work so well, and we'll write our own; the goal for each student being to publish one or more columns in a newspaper or magazine or on line. Guest writers and editors will visit and talk with us about their writing and their careers. We will address how to pick a topic, decide on an approach, back up an argument, develop a personal style, and then how to sell what you have written.

As newspapers fight to survive in a traditional manner, newspaper photojournalists are reevaluating and changing their ways of storytelling. Websites are giving new life and lots of space to journalists who are using these new methods of information delivery.

Visual reporting will reinforce basics of image making, will look at trends in visual journalism today and learn how to improve our storytelling by adding audio and multimedia presentations to our websites. Prerequisite for this class is Photojournalism I or presentation of a strong portfolio that demonstrates a high level of ability in photojournalism. A digital camera and audio gathering equipment is needed for this class.

This class is an introduction to photojournalism with an emphasis on developing the skills professionals use by shooting a series of nine photo assignments. Students are expected to provide their own SLR digital or film cameras, so the initial costs of the class are high. Digital cameras are preferred. The workload is demanding but also fun. Students are encouraged to explore new territory, i.e. venture off campus, to seek out interesting subjects and events worthy of coverage.The photo assignments range from shooting a basic environmental portrait, covering a scheduled public event and a sporting event (usually the New York marathon) to finding feature and pictorial photos in an everyday setting. The culmination is a final project, a photo essay on a single person, group of people or subject, utilizing skills learned throughout the semester. Additionally, every student will select and interview a working photojournalist. Students are expected to spend of time out of class looking at books, magazines, and newspapers and online for excellent photojournalism examples to help generate ideas for the class. Guest speakers from the profession will visit occasionally. By semester's end, students should have a basic understanding of the impact photographs have on society, the legal and ethical concerns of photojournalists, digital production of photographs, and the importance of captions and text accompanying photographs. Students will also produce a variety of photojournalistic images for an entry-level portfolio.

Students will report on one of the most fascinating aspects of New York: its stunningly diverse people. The goal is learning how to craft strong, captivating stories featuring classic New York characters and settings - with emphasis upon resourceful newsgathering and interviewing; responsible presentation of facts and events; vivid character development, color and detail; coherent structure, impeccable mechanics, and artful language. Students will be required to write four short features profiling local individuals, groups, venues, and/or institutions, with a fifth (longer, more in-depth) piece as their final. Through field trips, guest speakers, in-class exercises, readings, lecture and discussion, students will be encouraged to not only strengthen their reporting/writing skills, but also to broaden their perspectives about the varied cultural/socioeconomic milieus of their subjects. These New Yorkers may be "ordinary folks" or luminaries, individuals who are extremely successful in their fields or who are struggling to overcome serious challenges, born-and-bred New Yorkers or part of the immigrant tapestry that lends color and vibrancy to our city.

Using New York City's many art galleries, music clubs, theaters and performance spaces as laboratories, students will experiment with different ways of reporting and writing about the arts. Each student will choose a specialized cultural beat to concentrate on—contemporary art, for example, or modern dance or hip hop or performance—then set out to explore what is current in the field. Who are some of the most compelling artists? What trends are beginning to emerge? What kind of work is being privileged? What kind of work is being ignored? Emphasis will be placed on coming up with fresh story ideas and developing them into fully researched, fully reported articles.

The standout stories and essays you write in this class will be offered to 150 editors nationally, including at the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday, the San Antonio Express-News, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Ithaca Journal. More than 90% of the stories carried on Livewire last year were published. If you're serious about journalism, and ready for a demanding professional-level class that will give you an edge, Livewire is for you.

Principles and methods of magazine editing and production. Includes practical training and instruction in editorial work such as editing stories, layout, proofreading, planning issues, and desktop publishing. The main assignment is a class project editing and designing the departmental magazine, Manhattan South.

Writing and producing TV news programs. During the term, students produce 12 complete broadcasts that are fed live to residence halls and other locations on campus. Many of these casts are also fed to the Internet for online viewing. Responsibilities include all aspects of TV news: story selection and development, field production, anchoring, reporting, operation of all studio and control room equipment, writing, copy editing, and directing. Deadline realities are emphasized as live broadcasts begin on an exact-time basis.

All over the world, people argue over America and its meaning for the rest of the world. Does the United States offer hope to other countries around the world, or does it pose a terrible menace? The debate over this question plays a significant role in world affairs right now. It is not a new debate, however. The same argument has been going on for centuries in different versions, indeed since before the United States declared its independence in 1776. The purpose of this seminar is to examine both sides of this debate, to identify its fundamental themes, and, above all, to trace the history and evolution of the debate in the writings of major authors.

The seminar will read books and essays from the past and present, both primary sources and scholarly studies, including, but not limited to, the following: The American Enemy by Philippe Roger, a history of French dislike of the United States over the centuries; Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, by V. I. Lenin; Essays by Noam Chomsky; Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville; Democratic Vistas by Walt Whitman; What We Think of America, an issue of Granta magazine (essays by Ariel Dorfoman, Orhan Pamuk and writers from many countries).

Additional Prerequisite: Honors Advanced Reporting (V54.0351)

Prerequisites: Foundations, Inquiry, The Beat

Prerequisites: Foundations, Inquiry, The Beat

Students develop their ability to analyze and critique a variety of arts, particularly theatre and other live performances. The course emphasizes discussion of the debates on art, politics, and cultural issues that provide the context for informed critical writing. Students take advantage of London's vibrant theatre, music, and art scenes and should expect to see two performances a week, hear a BBC Proms classical concert, and visit museums such as the Tate and the National Gallery.

Seminar on current issues in journalism as seen from a global perspective, including such topics as the role of international news agencies, the influence of humanitarian agencies on newsgathering, photojournalism in a digital age, how local journalists report the news in countries without a First Amendment, and the risks of covering dangerous or traumatic stories. Looks both at international media and at U.S. media from an international point of view. Includes field trips and guest speakers.

Using the cultural life of Prague as its focus, students will learn to report on the diversity of cultural and artistic activity in the Czech capital in eight main areas—film, photography, literature, architecture, music, visual arts, travel, and literature. Several forms and techniques will be explored including news reports, interviews, reviews (film, literature, theater), feature stories, essays, and commentaries. During the course, students will learn not only about Prague's cultural landscape but they will be encouraged to examine it in various journalistic and literary forms. One of the leading aims of this course is also to introduce the students to extraordinary artists whose work has gained international attention.

The course focuses on combining the techniques of fiction with the rigor of journalistic travel reporting to produce stories that move beyond the constraints of the news and feature story: stories that engage, resonate with readers, provide insight - stories that "produce the emotion." The course proceeds by reading and analysis of contemporary journalism and classic travel pieces; careful examination of the narrative, fictional and literary devices used in travel writing; examination of and practice with various information gathering strategies; and consideration of the ethics of representation. Students will produce travel articles on deadline in several different styles and genres.

This course aims to give students a strong grounding in radio journalism and radio production and unlock the secrets of being a successful freelance stringer. Topics include: organization of a radio station, stringers and the industry, cultivating sources, writing the radio news dispatch, on-air voice and delivery, the technology of radio reporting, conducting the interview, press conferences, covering a news event, sound editing, producing the radio feature. During the semester students will write several news dispatches; record and edit a ten-minute interview; and write, edit, record and produce a radio feature story.

A collaborative seminar designed to question the impact of various forms of media on "society" and various notions of society on "media." Students consider conventional and unconventional media in Central Europe—from the International Herald Tribune to movies to fashion magazines—in an effort to interpret Central European culture. The key question is not "Is this text 'good'?" but "What does this text mean?"

The course will focus on foreign reporting in American and British newspapers and journals (not wire, radio or television) from Evelyn Waugh's Scoop! to the present. How has foreign news in print evolved and what does it take to be a foreign correspondent today? History, extensive reading and guest lectures by contemporary foreign correspondents will bring context to the practical second half of the course in which the class will produce its own stories.

After the fall of Communism in 1989 the old centralized command media system had to be replaced with a new open plural media system. Transformation of print media was relatively simple — it needed only deregulation (abolishing the administrative control of the state, abolishing censorship, opening the system up to free enterprise, etc.). Due to their nature and history, the transformation of radio and television was more complex and problematic — it required not only deregulation, but also re-regulation (rewriting the old laws, transforming the old government agencies into public corporations, delegating regulatory authority to non-governmental bodies, etc.). The course will describe the history of the Czech media since 1989 and will try to analyze results of the transformation and developing trends.

Qualified students will be placed in a variety of English-language print and broadcast outlets.

This class will explore the sociocultural and philosophical context of the media industry and the practice of mass communication in Africa in general, and Ghana in particular. This broad perspective will be examined against the background notion that the media do not function in a vacuum. Thus, students will examine how these contexts, informed by the dominant philosophies and macro-institutional practices of society, mitigate or even dictate the operations of the media. As a special focus, we will examine the significance of the liberalization of the airwaves in emerging democracies such as Ghana.

This course will examine stories in their many different manifestations. Its objective is to give students a critical appreciation of how stories are told through different media and to serve different agendas-be it art or advertising, journalism or national history. Guest lecturers, using real-world examples from different disciplines, will play a significant role in helping students understand how stories are told. Students will be expected to produce stories of their own through media of their choosing.

Qualified students will be placed in a variety of English-language print and broadcast outlets.