Courses

• COM JO 532: Sports Journalism Seminar Series
  Explore the issues that writers and broadcasters face as they pursue their careers in sports journalism. Each week, we invite working professionals to join us on campus discussing such topics as ethics, sports and its place in society, reporting, women in sports and how to find that first job. Students are expected to ask thoughtful questions and will be required to write an evaluation each week. A great opportunity to start the networking process. 4 cr, 1st sem.
• COM JO 533: The Essay
  This is a course about the conception, development, and expression of ideas through language. In the final analysis, the course puts front and center the process of thinking about such ideas and then persuading others of their importance and rectitude. Among the issues addressed are: the logic and structure of arguments; the articulation of a ?stance?; development of the tone, style and elegance of writing; and the parrying of counterarguments even before they are stated. Students read and analyze a variety of essays on a number of subjects, including, film, domestic politics, cultural issues, war and peace, theatre and fine arts, sexual politics, human relationships, and the training of dogs. Among the authors whose work gets read are Susan Sontag, Simon Schama, Chuck Klosterman, Ellen Willis, Woody Allen, Nick Hornby, Garry Wills, Francis Fukuyama, Joan Didion, Hannah Arendt, Samuel Huntington, and Jean-Paul Sartre. 4 cr, either sem.
• COM JO 534: Broadcast News for Nonmajors
  Basic instruction in producing video news reports for television and/or the Internet designed for students who are not majoring in broadcast journalism. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
• COM JO 535: INVESTIGATIVE AND PROJECT REPORTING
  Investigative and Project Reporting is an advanced seminar that will teach select students the practice of depth reporting and writing. Students will use a variety of reporting techniques ? from computer database searches to shoe leather -- in pursuit of long-term projects ideally destined for publication in one of several professional publications that have entered into cooperative agreements with the Boston University Department of Journalism. Among them are The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine and the Boston Phoenix. Story subjects will range from public system failures to questionable convictions, narrative reconstructions to explanatory journalism. 4 cr, 2nd sem
• COM JO 537: Digital Photography Fundamentals
  Students plan, discuss, photograph, write, and lay out picture stories in black and white and/or color.
• COM JO 538: Feature Writing
  Writing feature articles for newspapers, magazines and other media. Covers markets open to free-lance writers, published articles, newspaper feature sections, and Sunday supplements. Offered only in the summer, for undergraduates and graduate students.
• COM JO 542: THE LITERATURE OF JOURNALISM
  This course examines the works of prominent literary journalists, and explores different voices and styles in the genre. The course also seeks to track the evolution of nonfiction narrative in American journalism, starting with Mark Twain and continuing to the present.
• COM JO 545: Reporting Military Affairs
  The role of the press in covering international conflicts, as well as the responsibilities of the press to cover military policies, procedures, and programs during peacetime.
• COM JO 546: Statehouse Program
  The prime component of The Boston Statehouse Program, this advanced study in government and political reporting offers the opportunity to write and report from Beacon Hill for a Massachusetts daily. The course goal is to develop writing and reporting skills through the daily experience of covering state government. Students acquire the skills necessary to work in a daily news environment, including interviewing, developing sources, archival research and deadline writing.
• COM JO 550: Advanced Online Journalism
  This course focuses on producing long-form, interactive multimedia news. Working in teams, print, broadcast and photojournalism students learn to produce documentary style multimedia packages that combine still photography, audio, video and text. The course will offer an overview of techniques and best practices currently employed by news organizations to produce advanced multimedia projects for the web. 4 cr, either sem.
• COM JO 702: Advanced Science Writing
  Students learn to research, organize, and write a major magazine article of publishable quality. Projects for the course, with appropriate revision, may be submitted in lieu of a separate master's project.
• COM JO 703: Magazine Writing
  This is a course in long-form magazine journalism such as appears in the New Yorker, Harpers, Rolling Stone, Outside, and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications. The class reads and analyzes superb examples of the genre and reports, researches and writes long-from pieces of its own. Among the issues addressed in depth are: intensive, in-depth reporting and research; the writing process; the use of fine language and the development of a personal voice; the importance of a point of view; structuring long pieces; digging deeply into subjects in order to truly enlighten readers. Also discussed is a reporting and writing strategy rooted in the methods of anthropology and ethnography. Other issues: the importance of complexity, the organic development of characters, the nature of narrative, the depiction of otherness and difference; the use of empathy; ?mindful? journalism; and the development of relationships with sources through deep preparation, emotional connectedness, and conversation (instead of Q & A).
• COM JO 705: Science Unbound-Writing at the Edges of Science and Society
  A course in which students read, think and write about several areas where science and society interact, how that interaction has played out in the media and how that has affected the public's perceptions and policy decisions. We'll examine three thematic areas in which science has has a particularly prickly relationship with the media, perhaps because they touch on primal emotions:(1) Uncertainly and Doubt, (2) Hope and Fear, and, (3) Truth and justice. Students will also complete a series of short to medium length magazine style pieces suitable for front of the book sections of popular publications- such as Wired, Discover, Technology and New Scientist.
• COM JO 707: Writing and Reporting for Broadcast News
  Students must take this course in conjunction with JO 711 (where they learn the basics of video cameras and video editing). Students learn to write and report using audio and video. The first half of the course emphasizes writing on deadline with audio. Students learn how to record digital audio and edit it using digital audio editing software. The second half of the course is field reporting with video. Students will also be asked to critique audio and video reports produced for radio, TV and the web and to prepare a critical presentation on an issue facing journalists using audio and video as their medium. Students will learn how to use APENPS software used in most professional newsrooms to prepare copy. Emphasis is on hard news. 4 cr, 1st sem.
• COM JO 709: TV News Management
  Students examine the profession of management as it relates to broadcast news operations. In-depth analysis of news organizations, both network and local, budgets, personnel management, policy development, and ethical considerations with practical case study approach.
• COM JO 711: Electronic News Production
  Electronic field and studio production, basic editing processes, and use of newer techno-logies.
• COM JO 712: Online Radio Newsroom
  Students produce a half-hour LIVE news show on the student radio station, WTBU, during each class. Students report, write, produce and engineer all the news, sports and commentary in the program on deadline. Students from London and State House programs file stories for the news show. Students are expected to file frequently and to critique programs from NPR, BBC, WBZ and other audio news outlets. The best productions will be pitched to WBUR and State House clients for their websites. 4 cr, 1st sem.
• COM JO 718: Magazine Workshop
  This final magazine writing course is designed to create a published magazine as a writing portfolio for students. This is a studio course, taught by two professors, which covers writing and design in a setting that captures the dynamics of professional practice. Students within each group, assume professional positions and conceptualize, write, edit, design, and publish magazines. Magazines are designed and published using QuarkXPress and Adobe Photoshop. Design concepts and techniques, along with computer programs used in this course, are taught with step by step instructions. 4 cr 2nd sem
• COM JO 719: Feature Writing
  Writing feature articles for newspapers, magazines and other media. Covers markets open to free-lance writers, published articles, newspaper feature sections, and Sunday supplements.
• COM JO 721: Journalism Principles and Techniques
  Required. Students acquire techniques of newswriting and reporting by covering a full range of news stories in a laboratory situation. Stress on deadline pressure, writing, and reporting. Includes weekly seminar on journalism principles as illustrated by current events and controversies.

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