- A survey of journalism’s core values and practices
- Journalism vs. other types of media production
- The role of journalism in a democratic society: critical thinking, independence, and creativity
- The journalism business today: its current state and career landscape
- The foreseeable futures of journalism
- Major issues and events in journalism today and throughout history
- The expanding concept of “journalism”
- Why being a journalist is more exciting, demanding, and necessary than ever
- Basic investigative tools and techniques
- Research methods and best practices
- Developing sources
- Interviewing techniques and ethics
- Thinking critically: evaluating sources and source material
- Newsroom operations
- An overview of reporting beats
- Writing clear, accurate, and engaging prose in an audience-appropriate manner
- Structuring news pieces: writing ledes, nut grafs, and kickers; the inverted pyramid
- Longform narratives, feature writing, and how they differ from straight news reporting
- The elements of journalistic long-form writing: structure, character development, point of view, and attribution
- Word choice and word order
- Grammar, spelling, and punctuation
- Organizing materials and selecting a narrative structure
- The writing process: carrying a story from concept to publication
- The art of pitching: locating the right outlet and submitting work for publication
- Magazine reporting
- Longform narrative and the freelance market
- Reporting news and storytelling with and across various mediums
- Multimedia storytelling structures
- Producing fact-based audio and visual stories for the web
- Thinking critically: verifying photos and videos
- Scripting for audio and visual storytelling
- Audio and visual digital editing; production for the web
- Best practices in audio and video
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Ethical and copyright issues specific to multimedia reporting
- Journalism in the age of social media
- Overview of social media platforms and story formats
- Social media for newsgathering and distribution
- The pitfalls of social media reporting: fake profiles and accounts, bots, misinformation, fact-checking
- Thinking critically: identifying false, misleading, and unbalanced information and sources
- Social media's role in journalism: publisher or platform?
- Being on social media: journalists as influencers, community engagement, and trolls
- Using analytics platforms to measure social media engagement
- The attention economy
- Journalistic business models & how media companies make money
- Tech giants and news apps: how social media does (and doesn’t) fund journalism
- The entrepreneurial journalist: more than founding a media company
- The freelance journalist
- Understanding ad revenue
- Crafting a professional identity
- Creating and enhancing your professional brand on social media
- Workplace soft skills for journalists
- Secondary revenue streams such as film/TV rights, books, and podcasts
6 Modules
Certificate of Completion from New York University
Real industry-based assignments
Landscape and career paths for journalists
100% online, self-paced, and on-demand
Easy access via mobile and desktop devices
