New & Noteworthy

A media career in the 21st century looks a lot different than it did several decades ago. The traditional structure of big networks and institutional newspapers has given way to niche digital publications and thriving social media platforms. This course will give you the tools to build your future outside the traditional media box. This course is open to graduate and undergraduate students.

Fall 2018

JRNL3305 | CRN17704 (Undergraduate)

JRNL6305 | CRN17705 (Graduate)

Northeastern University School of Journalism has been a leader in investigative journalism since 2007 when The Boston Globe “Spotlight” Investigative Reporter Walter “Robby” Robinson joined our school as a Distinguished Professor and pioneered student-centered investigations. In 2014, FOX25 Investigative Reporter Mike Beaudet joined our faculty as a Professor of Practice. Beaudet now is an Investigative Reporter at Boston’s WCVB News. Under his direction, students work with renowned media partners like The Boston Globe, WCVB-TV and WGBH to help choose targets of investigation, crunch the data, and come through records and work side-by-side with professional journalists to create high-impact stories that appear on TV, radio and in print.

Last year, these stories helped spark a reform of Massachusetts public records law and led to students winning student and professional Emmy awards, as well as being part of a Boston Globe submission that won a Scripps Howard award for investigative reporting. Imagine how impressive that will look on your resume. Investigative and Advanced Reporting is open to graduate and undergraduate students.

If you would like more information about Investigative Reporting please contact Mike Beaudet at [email protected] .

Professor Mike Beaudet’s Investigative Reporting class reporting for WCBV-TV News.

Professor Mike Beaudet’s Investigative Reporting class reporting for Fox25 News.

Graduate Class: Data journalism, and data storytelling more generally, are hot fields. Being able to tell data-driven stories is a career skill in much demand. Building the knowledge base to do this accurately, creatively, and successfully is the goal of this course. As the cost has fallen for analysis and visualization software, and as datasets of all kinds are being released openly on the web, data storytelling has taken off as a skill and field. There are many applications and use cases in business, government, law, medicine, and the public and private sectors alike. However, the most prominent way that citizens access and engage with data stories is through mass media and journalism.

Telling Your Story with Data, JRNL  6341, explores select topics in data journalism and support data-driven storytelling projects of various kinds. Course units will foster moderate technical learning of applications and software; incorporate theories from relevant fields in data visualization and data science, and emphasize storytelling for broad public audiences. This class is a requirement for those graduate students in the Media Innovation track and an elective for those in the Professional track.

Specifically, this course aims to:

• Foster knowledge of both the classic and cutting-edge forms for telling stories with data.
• Instill a sense of rigor in analyzing and using data and statistics.
• Build knowledge of a variety of software tools and applications to clean, analyze, and visualize data.
• Empower students to work creatively on projects they are passionate about, promoting innovation and experimentation in storytelling.

This course is taught by former Boston Globe Spotlight reporter Matt Carroll.

Fall 2018

JRNL6341 | CRN16107 (Graduate Students Only)

Get exposed to all aspects of TV news production from news from news gathering/producing to technical behind the scenes work. Be part of a team of student reporters, anchors, videographers, and editors to gather content and produce a Northeastern newscast. This class produced the 2017 Best College Newscast in New England judged by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Mike Beaudet is an investigative reporter for WCVB-TV Boston and a professor of practice at Northeastern’s School of Journalism. Michelle Carris a lecturer in the Communication Studies program at Northeastern. She worked for NBC, WHDH-TV in Boston. This class is open to graduate and undergraduate students.

Fall 2018

JRNL3305 | CRN17902 (Undergraduate)

JRNL6305 | CRN17901 (Graduate)

Public Relations Principles (JRNL 3426) is an essential course for students who are interested in public relations as a career, for aspiring journalists who need to know how to work with public relations professionals or students who simply want to learn how public relations activities help support an organization’s goals. This class is focused on learning skills, such as writing for the media, program planning, crisis planning and research and academics, such as the rich history of public relations, ethics, and law.

Professor of the Practice of Visual Communication

Dan Zedek’s work as a designer sits at the intersection of design, graphics, data visualization, journalism, and data storytelling—the cutting edge of journalism and the emerging fields of visual communication and literacy. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in this area as a Professor of the Practice, Professor Zedek will also develop and lead an interdisciplinary Visual Communication major. In his professional life Professor Zedek was design director of the Boston Globe from 1997 to 2016 where he led its visual transformation in print and on the web incorporating design, graphics and data in new (and award-winning) ways. He is now involved with Jeff Bezos, Marty Baron, and the Washington Post as they reimagine many of their news products.