The Journalism Department in the College of Communication is offering new courses in the spring, which students can now register for during their respective registration times throughout the next two weeks.
The classes are designed to give students a more real-life experience, ensuring they are more prepared for “the working world of journalism,” said Brian McGrory, chair of the journalism department and former editor of the Boston Globe.
“We want to be, unabashedly, the best journalism school in the country,” McGrory said. “I want the students in the BU program, who are really committed to the idea of being a professional journalist, to be able to come out of here with real, live professional training, a full portfolio of professional clips and be better positioned than anyone from any other journalism school to land their first job.”
Some of the new classes are different sections of JO 502, Journalism Special Topics. The new sections include topics on audience engagement, newsletter writing and sports media.
Each section will be led and taught by a different professor who specializes in the section’s topic.
JO 502 section A1, Newsletter Writing, will be taught by Dan McGowan, who writes a newsletter for the Boston Globe’s Rhode Island section. Students will learn about the history of newsletters, how to write them and how they differ from regular news articles.
“Newsletter writing is all the rage right now in journalism,” McGrory said. “Some news organizations depend on newsletters as a primary way of reaching readers. We don’t teach it here, and we need to.”
Adjunct Professor Jason Tuohey will teach JO 502 section B1, which will specialize in audience engagement. The course will explore how news organizations connect with potential readers and use analytics to follow audience behavior across digital platforms.
JO 502 section C1, Sports Media Then and Now, will be taught by Adjunct Professor Tony Massarotti. He is a co-host for the popular radio show “Felger and Mazz” on 98.5 The Sports Hub. The course will explore the evolution of sports media, especially comparing modern methods of reporting to practices before the internet.
“The world is always evolving, so I want to dig into that and try to identify what the most important skills are and hopefully try to develop those,” Massarotti said.
In addition to the sports media special topic course, the department is looking to expand the sports journalism program as a whole. Associate Professors Sherrod Blakely and Michael Holley are collaborating with McGrory to provide students interested in sports journalism with more experience on the field.
“Part of what we’re trying to do at BU is really give [students] as many options as possible to pursue whatever their career path may be, and in doing that, it requires more robust academic offerings,” Blakely said. “It requires more tangible, hands-on experience opportunities.”
The department is also piloting a new application-only newsroom initiative for next semester, which will be co-instructed by McGrory and Steve Greenlee, professor of the practice of journalism and former executive editor of the Portland Press Herald.
In this course, students will write for local non-profit news organizations as beat reporters, gaining real-world reporting experience with their work being professionally edited.
“We think we can help the industry. We can help all of the young nonprofits around here get real, live, great journalism that will be professionally edited here at BU,” McGrory said. “We’ll break news, we’ll break stories. Readers will benefit, and our students will benefit by getting portfolio, professional clips from this course.”
Classes will be structured to model real news meetings, with a mix of traditional lectures and hands-on activities, Greenlee said.
“I would love this program to be the centerpiece of the students’ experience in the journalism department,” Greenlee said. “Just like a medical school student would feel like the teaching hospital environment is the centerpiece of their learning experience, I would love it if students looked forward to this newsroom environment and felt like it was a key part of their experience at BU.”
