Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• COM JO 704: Online Journalism
  This course introduces students to multi- platform journalism. Students will gain practical experience producing and editing news and features for delivery via digital platforms. This class critiques and analyzes news sites to examine how multiple elements such as text, photo's audio, video, social media and interactive graphics are currently used in multimedia reporting. Four credits, fall and spring semesters.
• COM JO 707: Video Reporting
  This introductory course is about reporting, writing and producing the news for television and the internet. Students learn the fundamentals of news- gathering, story generation, research, videography, writing, editing and presentation. Strong stories air on BUTV and are posted on the department's news-service website. Four credits, fall semester.
• COM JO 710: Digital Tool Kit
  You will build technical skill-sets in shooting, editing, composition, lighting and color. You will learn to develop a visual plan to produce a strong video story that includes: action, reaction, opening, closing and point of view shots. You will also learn to shoot and edit a video sequence of a process. When shooting photos or video, students will capture a variety of situations and angles while using various focal length lenses. Editing skills are key to building a story, so we¿ll take a deep dive into editing workflow while learning to edit with Adobe Premiere Pro and Lightroom Classic. In addition to building visual storytelling skills, we will cover story arc and the interview.
• COM JO 711: Video Storytelling
  Graduate Prerequisites: JO 710 or permission of the instructor - Recommended for students in the TV journalism specialization who are interested in long-form video storytelling. This is a production class and will also include the study of documentary aesthetics, ethics and genres. Students will work throughout the semester to produce, shoot, and edit an eight-minute documentary short, learning to build a story from an idea to the final edited story. Students will be critiqued on their production skills as well as their reporting and storytelling.
• COM JO 721: Introduction to Reporting
  Students learn newswriting and reporting by covering a full range of news stories in a newsroom environment. This foundation course emphasizes stress on deadline pressure, writing, and reporting for all media. Includes weekly discussion of journalism principles as illustrated by current events and controversies. Four credits, fall semesters.
• COM JO 725: Media Law and Ethics
  MEDIA LAW/ETHIC
• COM JO 727: Narrative Non-Fiction
  Narrative Journalism focuses on the craft of true storytelling. We consume, study, and produce work that adheres to the highest standards and ethics of journalism. Among those are accuracy, fairness, honesty, transparency, independence, impartiality and accountability. Nonfiction narratives are carefully structured, with beginnings, middles and ends. They can be short or long. They can be presented on any media platform, but at their core is good writing. They feature characters rather than sources. They are built on scenes. They have themes. They have stakes. They include sensory detail. They are attuned to the emotional content of the information they explore. They unfold over time. They employ a voice appropriate to the material. They engage, enlighten, and when appropriate, entertain. Although they share certain structural and stylistic elements with great fiction, nothing in them is invented or imagined, and no characters are created or composited. They are true.
• COM JO 737: Journalism Internship
  Student develops a portfolio of professional work while working in the field. The student works 120-200 hours per semester or summer at the internship. Comprehensive paper, employer evaluation, and portfolio required upon completion of internship. Variable credit.
• COM JO 954: Directed Study
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor - Faculty and students work together in a tutorial situation to produce a substantial project of mutual interest. 4 cr.
• COM JO 955: Professional Project
  Graduate Prerequisites: Consent of instructor - In their final semester, all candidates for the M.S. degree in Journalism undertake a capstone project of professional quality. In consultation with a faculty member, the student conceives the project, carries out all necessary reporting and editing, combines multimedia elements as warranted, and seeks to have the work published or broadcast. 4 cr., either sem.