Journalism & Society:

Catalog description

In this hybrid reading / writing class, we will explore environmental journalism from an Australian perspective. We will meet for a weekly in-class seminar, except for three weeks during the session set aside for field trips. Our field trips will give us the opportunity to experience environmental issues first-hand, meet people, gather story ideas and find local Australian context for our own writing. Guest speakers will join us occasionally to further explore key issues. Our in-class seminars will briefly introduce key journalism concepts and techniques to those new to journalism and reinforce and further develop these skills for experienced journalism students. During each in-class seminar we will also discuss set readings, and explore the environment beat, reading stories that have been reported in Australia and around the world, with students having the opportunity to present stories to the class each week. We will consider work that explores this journalistic tradition, its forms and its themes and the place it takes in the new media world. Drawing our inspiration from great writers, we will find our own stories, our own voices and learn to tell our own tales.