The program in Business and Economic Reporting is interdisciplinary. Students receive intensive instruction in the fundamentals of business, finance, and economics. They also take specialized journalism courses in which they report and write on contemporary business issues.
Highlights include:
MBA courses: Students take six MBA courses at NYU's prestigious Leonard N. Stern School of Business.
M. A. Journalism courses: Students take six business journalism courses plus a summer internship.
Internships: Students take a ten-week, full time writing internship during the summer between their second and third semesters. NYU maintains relationships with many of the leading business publications in New York.
Training in broadcast journalism: Students interested in a career in broadcasting can take a broadcasting course, subject to availability.
Waiver and replacement of required courses: Students who come to the program with a strong academic background in business, finance, or economics may be waived out of one or more of the required MBA courses. In such cases, students take a more advanced business or economics course instead. The director of the program will make decisions on a case-by-case basis.
Required proficiencies: Many courses at the Stern School of Business require proficiency in math. Prior journalism experience is not a requirement for admission to the BER program.
The curriculum follows, first Journalism and then MBA courses:
M.A. Courses in Journalism
1. Writing, Research, and Reporting Workshop 1 G54.1021 (4 credits)
The teaching of news writing is divided into two courses given during the first and second semesters of study in the program. In Reporting 1, offered in the fall semester, students learn reporting principles and techniques and work on increasingly challenging in-class assignments. Students also use New York City as a laboratory to report actual business news events, including speeches, company meetings, elections, and courtroom activities. Topics include story structure and organization, writing techniques, news judgment, and the development of sources and story ideas.
2. Writing, Research, and Reporting Workshop 2: Covering Business and Financial News G54.1022 (4 credits)
Reporting 2, offered in the spring semester, intensifies the training of students in reporting and writing news articles. The class will be run like the actual newsroom of a business publication. Students will focus on coverage of business and financial news. Under tight deadline pressure, they will write news articles on the stock and bond markets and on business news generated especially by companies in New York and the tri-state region. They will also cover industry beats by developing reliable sources among analysts and company executives.
3. Specialized Reporting: Investigative Reporting G54.1182 (4 credits)
Students learn a wide range of techniques for gathering information for in-depth business articles and investigations. They learn how to formulate a strategy for effective reporting and then gather the needed information from interviews, documents, and online sources. The work focuses on collecting information from sources such as government agencies, legal source material, and databases. The course also introduces students to the use of spreadsheets for the analysis of information.
4. Specialized Reporting: Covering the Courts G54.1182 (4 credits)
Many business disputes land in the court system, whether they involve insider trading, financial fraud, antitrust violations, unsafe products, or environmental problems. Business journalists need to know how the court system operates, how to read legal decisions, and how to find critical information in legal archives. This course will cover each of these topics and also introduce students to several areas of law that are especially important in contemporary affairs.
5. Digital Journalism: The Business Webzine G54.1192 (4 credits)
Students in this third-semester course will use all the skills and knowledge they've acquired in the program to produce their own business publication. Under the guidance of an instructor, they will assign, write, and edit the articles that will appear in the publication.
6. Law and Mass Communication G54.0011 (4 credits):
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, obscenity, shield laws and protection of sources, free press and fair trial, and broadcast regulations by the FCC.
International students may instead take Press Ethics or another seminar, with permission of the BER Director.
Press Ethics G54.0012
Explores the ethical questions facing working journalists. Focuses on specific cases, both real and hypothetical. Through readings, papers, and class discussions, students analyze the ethical problems raised by these cases and develop their own systems for making ethical decisions.
7. Summer Internship (2 credits)
Internship G54.1290
Students will have an internship during their summer in residence at NYU. They will work in the business and financial reporting section of a newspaper, magazine, broadcasting station, or online publication. Most of these internships will be in New York City.
Directed Reading G54.1299
For part-time students. A substantial project of individual study, with the goal of exploring a business/economic subject at depth and producing a publishable article.
MBA Courses in NYU's Stern School of Business
8. Foundations of Finance B01.2311
Students will learn about the financial markets and the tools available to companies in need of capital. Included: the banking system, the stock and bond markets, options, venture capital, and angel capital. Also: financing choices for corporations, including equity, debt, and derivative financial instruments, and their effect on the value of the company.
9. Financial Accounting and Reporting B01.1306 (Stern School of Business, 3 credits)
"Accounting reports are an important means of communication with investors. This course focuses on the development, analysis and use of these reports. It provides an understanding of what these reports contain, what assumptions and concepts accountants use to prepare them, and why they use those assumptions and concepts. The course uses simple examples to provide students with a clear understanding of accounting concepts. It stresses the ability to apply these concepts to real world cases, which by their very nature are complex and ambiguous. In addition to text-oriented materials, the classes also include cases so that students can discuss applications of basic concepts, actual financial reports, and articles from newspapers. In addition to traditional introductory topics other topics may include mergers and acquisitions, purchase and pooling, free cash flow and financial statement analysis." (Source: Stern website)
10. Firms and Markets B01.1303 (Stern School of Business, 3 credits)
"This course is about economic principles: those governing the behavior of markets and firms-and strategic interactions between firms. Situations faced by leading corporations will be discussed, including supply and demand; how price depends on both costs and the sensitivity of buyers to price; the advantages and disadvantages of size; whether firms should make or outsource their inputs; how to increase revenue by charging different prices to different customers; the advantages and disadvantages of price competition; how to convey information to buyers and sellers; and winner take - most "network" markets. The course structure assumes that all students have had some economics background. They must be comfortable with quantitative concepts and approaches and with graphical/geometric ways of presenting quantitative information." (Source: Stern website)
11. Global Business Environment (Stern School of Business, 3 credits)
This class is divided into two seven-week sessions:
Global Business Environment I: B01.2123
"What are the key challenges in a global business environment? This course provides a framework for understanding the challenges faced in contemporary business as globalization has taken place in market competition, capital markets, and the utilization of labor and managerial talent. Students learn to understand the structural economic factors that affect business decisions and the complications caused by government policies and trends in world development." (Source: Stern website)
Global Business Environment II: International Macroeconomics and Finance B01.2125
"What are the political and economic relationships among nations that determine growth and affect the global business environment? Decision making in globalized businesses requires an understanding of the underlying concepts of international macroeconomics. Students learn to understand the linkages among world economies through exchange rates and the balance of payments and the fundamental forces that determine the growth of nations, as well as the effects of policy making in a global environment." (Source: Stern website)
12. Business History: Choose one from the following two courses (Stern School of Business, 3 credits).
Economic and Business History of the United States B30.2330
"This course examines the historical development of American enterprise since the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Focusing on the entrepreneurial forces that shaped the rise and evolution of the modern economy and business system, the course takes into account business strategy and structure, finance, management, labor organization, technology, transportation, communications, and public policy. Discusses the broader economic, cultural, and political constraints within which American enterprise has been shaped. The goals are to impart a long-term perspective from which contemporary business can be understood and to introduce students to historical ways of thinking about economic development." (Source: Stern website)
Financial History B30.2391
"This is a study of the historical development of modern financial institutions from the 18th-century financial revolution to the present, and the relationship between finance and politics. Covers warfare, taxation, representative government, public debts, inflation, interest rates, redistributive fiscal policy, the economics of elections, globalization, exchange rates, currency unions, democratization, and imperialism." (Source: Stern website)
13. Elective: Choose one course from the Stern School of Business (3 credits).
