Not available at this time

Not available at this time

This class is designed to help you understand the principles of broadcast presentation, including procedures and methods to use the voice, face and body as tools for communicating. There will be an emphasis on performing journalism on television, radio and online media. Through in-class exercises, drills and homework assignments, students will develop and practice skills for narration and on camera news delivery, including field reporting and in-studio anchoring. Upon completion of this class, students should be comfortable performing on-mic and on-camera.

This course operates on the premise that the best way to become a better visual journalist is to do more visual journalism, with a focus on reporting impactful community stories in partnership with local, campus, and social media. Through weekly visual class assignments, collaborative in-class brainstorming sessions, readings, discussion of contemporary issues, and visual critique sessions, students will develop their visual skills and knowledge.

Profile writing is among the most useful, most powerful, and most fun genres of journalism. Compelling characters keep readers hooked, helping them feel and better understand stories and, arguably, humanity itself. A well-construed portrait can even lure readers into learning about complicated subjects they might otherwise ignore. In this class, we will discuss the ingredients of ingenious profiles and get plenty of practice creating our own.

This course enables students to become explorers, arbiters and communicators of culture. That includes a wide variety of journalistic beats, such as music, food, film, television, art, travel and fashion. By developing cultural journalism skills, students will learn how to assess and diagnose what art is worth consuming and what is not, what audiences need to know and what they do not and how best to communicate all of the above. And they will learn how to cover culture in a variety of ways, including reporting, criticism and first-person essay writing.

This course will develop an understanding of the ethical questions raised by media coverage in a democratic society at a time of focus on profit over news values and on entertainment over substance. Issues discussed will include: accuracy and fairness, diversity, conflicts of interest, privacy, deception, relationships with sources and photojournalism. We will also learn to identify news values--or lack of them--both as professionals and as consumers. Satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BA-Journ majors.

Students will become familiar with legal concepts underlying freedom of the press: censorship, obscenity, libel, privacy, free press/fair trial, contempt, access and other legal problems affecting the mass media. The case study approach generally is used, but emphasis is on the principles and philosophy underlying various aspects of communication law as these affect the daily work of journalists.

Successful online storytelling requires more than just a good story. In this course, students will learn basic web design and development skills to better pursue their journalism goals online. Topics covered include basic design principles, HTML, CSS, working with images, logo design, typography and how to incorporate external plugins and modules.

This course explores career development as students start to prepare for life beyond UMass. Topics include career options for journalism majors; resumes, cover letters and networking; job search techniques and preparation. This course provides a structure and supportive environment for helping students define and pursue their career goals.