Photo of students in news studio

Business & Economic Journalism: Graduate Program

Students meet and receive advice from successful business journalism professionals in newspapers, magazines, broadcast outlets, news services, and trade publications. The three-semester program includes coursework in the College of Communication and approved elective coursework in the School of Management, Economics Department, and Department of Philosophy tailored to a student's goals. A third-semester professional internship is included.

Graduates can cover stories involving any industry or financial trend around the globe. Courses such as "Introduction to Business and Economics Reporting" (JO 501) teach basics of stocks, the economy, finance, and business news coverage, and give the opportunity to have stories published in daily newspapers and financial publications.

Core Requirements (4)
Subject-Area Courses: five or six

In addition, students will select two or three courses from the School of Management or the Department of Economics. These selections should be made in consultation and with the approval of the student's advisor. The selection of courses will be guided by the student's interests, career aspirations and knowledge of business and economics.

Electives - Journalism Formats (1)
  • JO 537 Digital Photo Fundamentals
  • JO 519 Advanced Radio
  • JO 534 Broadcast News for Non-Majors
  • JO 540 Multimedia Journalism
  • JO 707 Writing-Reporting for Broadcast
  • JO 711 Electronic News Production
Other Journalism Electives (1)
  • JO 506 Writing Columns and Editorials
  • JO 535 Investigative and Project Reporting
  • JO 703 Magazine Writing
  • JO 538 Feature Writing
Business Electives (2 or 3)

Course Descriptions

COM JO 501
Introduction to Business and Economics Reporting
Comprehensive training in writing business and economics stories. The emphasis is on understanding basic concepts and developing clear, simple language to describe complex issues. Students cover Boston-area companies and meet with business leaders and business and economics reporters from around the nation and world.

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COM JO 721
Journalism Principles and Techniques
Students acquire techniques of news writing and reporting by covering a full range of news stories in a laboratory situation. Stress on deadlines, writing, and reporting. Includes weekly seminar on journalism principles as illustrated by current events and controversies.

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COM JO 525
Media Law and Ethics
An examination of the many ethical issues and dilemmas that face reporters, editors, and producers and how to resolve them with professional integrity. Danger of actions for contempt or defamation, laws of copyright and intellectual property.

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COM JO 502
Writing Profiles of Business Leaders
Business writers can also be fine stylists. This course covers ways of identifying good subjects for business profiles, techniques of interviewing, opportunities to deepen the profile through document research, methods of situating the profile subject in the context of his or her company's financial performance and techniques of organization and narrative story-telling.

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COM JO 722
Advanced Journalism Seminar
News writing and reporting in the Boston area. Students cover working beats.

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COM JO 807
Advanced Journalism Research
A rigorous grounding in research and investigative methods from interviews and records searching to computer-assisted reporting and use of the Freedom of Information Act.

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CAS EC 501
Microeconomic Theory
Covers the basic concepts and techniques of microeconomic theory. Topics include consumer demand and its foundation on preferences and budget constraints, economics of uncertainty and imperfect information, production theory, applied competitive equilibrium analysis, elementary game theory, and imperfect competition.

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CAS EC 502
Macroeconomic Theory
Overview of macroeconomics, leading to successive focus on long-run economic growth and inflation, and on short-run fluctuations with emphasis on the role of fiscal and monetary policy. Readings from research journals; introduction to analysis of macroeconomic data.

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CAS EC 545
Financial Economics
Provides a sound understanding of the economic principles of finance, including the financial decisions and capital structure of a corporation, and its relation to capital markets. Models of capital asset pricing and investors' behavior are also discussed.

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CAS EC 551
Economics of Labor Markets
Economic behavior of labor markets and labor market institutions in the United States. Wage determination, labor allocation, discrimination, economics of trade unions, and industrial relations. Implications of labor market behaviors for public policy.

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CAS EC 571
Energy and Environmental Economics
Environmental resources and markets characterized from physical, economic, and legal standpoints. Welfare arguments for public sector intervention. Methodologies for policy assessment and simulation analyzed, including project analysis, new technology, evaluation models, deterministic and econometric models.

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CAS EC 591
International Economics
Theory of international trade; empirical evidence from both industrialized and developing economies. The factor content of trade, technology and trade patterns, scale economies and imperfect competition, elements of economic geography. Policy interventions: tariffs, the exchange rate, trading blocs, and political economy of reform.

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CAS EC 595
International Finance
Applies economic tools to open-economy macroeconomics. Topics include the determinants of the current account, exchange rate management, international capital markets, and growth in the world economy. Topical issues: the formation of the Euro; debt and financial crisis in developing countries.

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GSM AC 710
Financial and Managerial Accounting
An introduction to accounting, and an examination of how it helps in decision-making. Financial accounting (information needs of stockholders, creditors, and analysts) and managerial accounting (information needs of managers) are stressed equally. Topics covered include income statement and balance sheet format, purposes, and limitations; statement of cash flows; analysis of financial statements; cost behavior; budgeting; and divisional performance measurement. [Lectures, exams, and team project.]

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GSM MK 723
Marketing Management
This course builds an in-depth understanding of basic marketing concepts and applies those concepts to a variety of management situations, including non-profit and public sector settings. The course provides working knowledge of the tools of marketing (product policy, pricing, distribution, promotion, consumer behavior), and the ways in which these tools can be usefully employed. The course builds practical skills in analyzing marketing problems and opportunities, and in developing marketing programs.

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GSM FE 721
Financial Management
Financial Management examines three sets of problems: (1) saving and investment decisions by households, (2) investment and financing decisions by corporations, and (3) the role of securities markets and financial intermediaries in the economy. Decisions today affect the timing of and uncertainty about future flows of income; both timing and risk determine the current value of those future flows. This course develops the tools required to analyze these decisions and their interaction within the financial system.

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CAS PH 650
Types of Ethical Theory
Close reading of several essential works in the history of ethical theory, including some of the following: Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, and Mill.

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CAS PH 651
Contemporary Ethical Theory
An examination of twentieth-century English and American moral theories including those of Moore, Foot, Williams, MacIntyre, and Rawls.

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