Beyond Breaking News: Telling the Big Stories

Catalog description

In this class, students will learn how to tell journalistic stories on subjects of deep and lasting significance, such as racism, climate change, health, and economic inequality. The goal will always be to go beyond what is newsworthy in the moment, and to explore and illuminate issues of long-lasting social significance. Students will have opportunities to tell stories through a variety of media-written, audio, and/or visual-though they can choose to work in a single medium. It is preferred but not required that students have already taken CMM 274 . This class, however, will provide a review (or introduction, or those new to journalism) of basic journalistic methods, such as interviewing and note-taking. Students will generally be assigned to complete several short pieces of reporting and at least one longer piece, each built upon relevant interviews and other research. Given the richness and complexity of the subjects about which students will tell stories, they should expect to bring to their work in this class interdisciplinary knowledge from their other classes, especially those in the College Core. Texts will include a wide sampling of professional journalism chosen to serve as models for the students' own work.