Journalism

• 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 734: Newsroom
  In an unsettled industry, local nonprofit and independently owned news organizations are rising up in communities across Greater Boston. In this class, our students become reporters for these outlets, partnering with designated news sites to write high impact news and enterprise stories, almost always under deadline pressure. Students will see first-hand the challenges and triumphs of working in a newsroom, all while emerging with a portfolio of professionally published work.
• 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.