JOUR 395 - Specialty Reporting

Planned Offering: Offered in fall or winter when departmental resources permit.
Credits: 3

Prerequisites: Journalism 201 and junior standing, or instructor consent. An advanced reporting course in which students develop expertise in a particular area of public significance. Topics rotate as faculty resources allow, and are likely to include education, politics, environment, religion, or education. Through reporting and writing, students learn about key institutions, terms, and sources related to the particular field. They learn how to identify newsworthy stories and write clear, compelling, fair, and accurate news stories for mass audiences. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different. Appropriate for non-majors.

Winter 2017, JOUR 395: Specialty Reporting: The Environment (3). Prerequisite: Journalism 201 and junior standing, or instructor consent. Non-majors welcome with instructor consent. For journalism majors, this course fulfills the “specialty reporting” requirement. For mass communications minors, it fulfills the “media practice” requirement. Is climate change real? Are our water and food sources safe? Is wind energy preferable to coal? These are among the topics we explore in this advanced reporting course. Students learn about key institutions, issues, and sources related to the environment, and learn how to identify newsworthy topics and write clear, compelling, fair and accurate stories for the web, television and print publications.