2019 - Summer

The Feminist Journalist (Session 2)

Course Number: SS2: JOUR-UA 505.001

Day & Time: T/R 4:00pm-7:00pm

Location: 20 Cooper Square

Instructor: Lauren Duca

Albert Class Number: 4652

Media coverage of our current political climate has been plagued by the mental Napalm that I call “both sides-ism.” This is a kind of classic “he said, she said” form of journalism where the reporter tries to give both sides of an issue, even if one side is completely bogus. You’ll also hear it referred to as “balance,” although in many cases it’s “false equivalency,” because attempting to appear balanced just serves to create more distortion.

The truth is not a math equation. In the midst of the ongoing American dumpster fire, there is, I believe, only one side to journalism, and it is motivated by building a truer, more equitable democracy. As this course will establish, not only does this effort allow for feminist journalists, it renders feminist journalism a moral necessity. We cannot build to social justice without adequate representation of intersectional perspectives.

Through two reported essays and the establishment of a fully-conceptualized social media presence, the Feminist Journalist will establish the imperative of interconnected motivations in the ideology of feminism and practice of journalism in the totality of the writer’s communication with the world. Our goal will be to create a concrete set of ethics for guiding radical transparency: rather than attempting to pretend the brain is a white board that might be erased, as is the misinterpretation of objectivity, we will aim to share as much as possible, detailing the precise vantage point from which the truth is shared.