2021 – Fall

Methods and Practice: Experimental Journalism

Course Number: JOUR-UA 202, section 3

Day & Time: Thu | 11:00 AM – 1:30 PM

Location: 20 Cooper Square, room 652

Prerequisites: Journalistic Inquiry: The Written Word JOUR-UA 101

Where is journalism headed? The ongoing digital revolution has made possible new means of packaging, distributing and accessing journalism. This course will consider what’s next but will focus on the revolutions in content journalism has been undergoing and likely will continue to undergo. To gain perspective on the relationship between changes in media and changes in content, the course will feature four discussions of reactions to changes in earlier media. But at the heart of this course will be more recent attempts to expand the boundaries of the field. Students will read, watch and listen to journalism – some very new, some relatively old – that employs path-breaking forms, displays nontraditional styles and approaches under-covered subjects. They will be asked to undertake experiments of their own with such forms, styles and subject matters – initially in short exercises, eventually in a longer piece of journalism. All this with an eye toward beginning to answer another question: What more might journalism enable us to understand?

Examples will include writings by Nora Ephron, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Dave Eggers, Hunter Thompson, Jonathan Lethem, David Foster Wallace and Sallie Tisdale, as well as work in other media by Vice, Errol Morris and Radio Lab.

Notes: Counts as an elective for the journalism major and both journalism minors.

Questions? Email undergraduate.journalism@nyu.edu.