School of Journalism
College of Arts & Sciences
Northeastern University
360 Huntington Avenue
102 Lake Hall
Boston, MA 02115-5000
phone: 617.373.3236
fax: 617.373.8773
Developed bySelected Course Descriptions
The School of Journalism offers an extensive list of both required courses and electives, some of which are listed below. Students in both tracks are also expected to take graduate-level courses outside the department. Most graduate journalism classes meet from 5:30 p.m. to 8:40 p.m. And most have no more than 10 to 15 students.
Core courses:
Intensive Reporting: A "boot camp" course offered in the three weeks leading up to the start of fall semester. The course enables students with little or no journalism experience to get up to speed on the basics of news reporting and writing.
Research Methods in Journalism: A course that teaches students how to recognize and track down public records, collect and analyze data and put together complex news and news feature stories. Students have to use both Web-based research techniques and old-fashioned journalistic digging.
Enterprise Reporting: An advanced reporting and writing course designed to sharpen the research, interviewing and analytical skills necessary for good reporting. The focus is on learning to develop story ideas for a major enterprise article.
Other courses in our catalogue:
Non-Fiction Writing: A course for students who want to hone their craft and practice magazine-style writing. Students learn to see detail, hear sounds, notice nuances and experiment with a more narrative form of journalism.
Seminar in Investigative Reporting: A course that will introduce students to the world of investigative reporting as it is practiced at major metropolitan newspapers. Students will work collaboratively as members of investigative reporting teams. They will study the work of early muckrakers, and the projects of 21st Century investigative reporting teams. They will be introduced to advanced reporting techniques and standards in the classroom. They will learn how ideas for investigative reporting projects are developed; how to identify and interpret public records and online databases; how to locate and interview cooperative victims and unwilling targets; and how to organize and write investigative stories. Working in small teams, the students will apply these techniques to investigative reporting assignments, with the goal of developing and writing investigative stories for publication in The Boston Globe.
News Internship: A course in which students are placed in outside internships for the semester, performing what ideally is staff-level work in one of the several disciplines taught in the School of Journalism, including print journalism, online journalism, radio or television journalism, public relations or related pursuits. Course guidelines call for 10 to 15 hours a week with the host, doing work that parallels as closely as possible what entry-level staff members do. Students in the course meet weekly with the instructor, either individually or as a group, to discuss their progress in the internship.
Television Newswriting: A course that teaches students the unique language and style of writing for television news. This course stresses the importance of the writer-reporter as field producer and writer-producer.
Photojournalism: An intensive course that covers camera procedures as well as the mechanics of cropping and photo captioning, assignment techniques and theory.
TV News Production: A course that develops techniques used by the electronic journalist and TV news producer. This course requires students to build a TV news show and do reporting with portable TV cameras and editing equipment.
Perspectives on Journalism and Professional Ethics: A course that discusses the ethical problems confronting decision makers in various journalistic fields and the principles found in codes of various professional societies.
Historical Perspectives on U.S. and Foreign Media: A course that examines American journalism from its European and English roots to the present day. Topics include the colonial press, the great personal journalists of the 19th century and the impact of major technological changes in the news media in the 20th century.
Literature of Journalism: A course that studies numerous authors and observers of the journalism profession through their works to provide a wide-ranging view of the craft of reporting, as well as its nature and impact.
First Amendment in the Digital Age: A course on contemporary legal issues that affect the press. Examines libel, invasion of privacy, access to government information and other legal matters pertinent to the news media.
Graduate Seminar: An intensive seminar on a rotating topic of contemporary interest such as coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Customize a course for one-on-one instruction:
Directed Study:Students in our program are encouraged to explore their interests under the guidance and supervision of a faculty member. For example, a student may want to pursue an intensive reporting or research project that doesn't fit within the core curriculum. In a directed study, which counts as a full-credit course, the student works with a faculty member to develop and undertake such a project.