2026 - Summer

Through the Lens of Food: Social Media Reporting (2 credit) (Session 1)

Course Number: SS1: JOUR-UA 25

Day & Time: Tue/Thurs 5:30-7:30pm

Location: 20 Cooper Sq.

Instructor: Becky Hughes

Reported stories about food, both restaurant dining and home cooking, are often best told in formats beyond the written word. Social media platforms like Instagram, X, YouTube and TikTok present opportunities to present journalism in highly visual, extremely dynamic formats. In this course, you’ll hone the skill set of combining writing, video and photos to create original reporting about trends, recipes, history and politics, all through the lens of food.

Over the course of the next six weeks, you’ll work towards building an account on the platform of your choice that has a strong, consistent point of view on food, and every week you’ll develop new pieces of content to populate your channel. At the end of the course, you’ll have a final portfolio social media account that showcases your reporting through different pieces of content that engage, and quickly reach, the desired audience for your journalism.

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

Instructor bio:

Becky Hughes is a writer and social media editor who currently works as an Assistant Editor at The New York Times. She oversees all social media for the Food & Cooking sections of the Times, managing a team that produces vertical video series and standalone social media reporting. She writes a monthly installment of the Where to Eat: New York City newsletter called “Ask Becky,” in which she recommends restaurants to readers, and she contributes trend stories to the Food and Styles sections. She also produces larger projects for the Times including a timeline of 25 Years of Dining in New York City, and the Travel section’s guide to spending 36 Hours in New York City.