2026 - Spring

Elective Reporting Topics: Investigating Injustice

Course Number: JOUR-UA 204.003

Day & Time: Tue | 1:05 PM – 4:05 PM

Prerequisite: Journalistic Inquiry: The Written Word (JOUR-UA 101)

Unarmed Black men and women killed by police or targeted by vigilantes. Asian Americans beaten on the subways and on our city streets. Multiracial allies trying to support and defend Black lives, immigrants and members of the trans community, even as the Trump administration cracks down. In this class, students will acquire the essential tools in an investigative reporter’s toolkit while reporting on race and gaining a deeper understanding of the historical roots of our racial and ethnic divides. We will start by investigating unsolved racial killings from the 1900s and move on to contemporary hate crimes, learning how to use archival records, police and court records and online databases to deepen our reporting of the violence and protests occurring right now in our communities. We will spend the bulk of the semester reporting on our contemporary cases as we build toward our final project, a 2,000-word article that will illuminate how hate – and the battle against it – manifests today in New York City. All the while, we’ll analyze media coverage for racial bias and turn the lens on ourselves so that we can produce more accurate and thoughtful content.

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