General provisions

This course is part of the Bachelor program in Media and Communication and Journalism studies.

Entry requirements

15 credits in media and communication studies

Learning outcomes

After the course the student should be able to:

Knowledge and understanding

• be knowledgeable about the journalistic practices of newsgathering, news evaluation, and news writing and reporting, using print, broadcast and web technologies,
• be aware of the different journalistic roles and tasks,
• be aware of the applied dimension of professional ethics.

Competence and skills

• search, collect, evaluate and critically use relevant information, sources and other material, for the production of news,
• produce news, in a variety of genres and formats, using a variety of technologies,
• deliver journalistic projects -individually and in groups- within given time frames,
• apply the main principles of journalism ethics in the production of news,
• apply the main principles of investigative journalism in the production of news.

Judgement and approach

• make ethically-informed judgments in the production of news,
• use the approach of investigative journalism as an approach for an ethically-informed quality journalism.

Content

This course focuses on the applied dimension of journalism, combining practice with reflection on this practice. The students are introduced to newsroom organisation and to the different journalistic roles and tasks. They familiarize with the methods and techniques of newsgathering, evaluating information and fact-checking. Throughout this course, the students are trained on the main techniques of newswriting and reporting, for a variety of genres and formats (e.g., reportage, feature, analysis, interview), and news areas (e.g., politics, economy, society, culture, sports), using also different media technologies (e.g. print, broadcast, web), in converged forms of news. Via this training, the students are exposed to the applied dimension of ethics in journalistic practice, with regard to factuality, objectivity, truth, accuracy and balance. The course has a special focus on investigative journalism, introducing the latter as the model for an ethically driven, quality journalism.

Instruction

Lectures, seminars and workshops are combined with individual and group work activities and assignments.

Assessment

The course is examined through active participation in compulsory activities, in individual and group-work assignments, and in oral and/or written exam.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University's disability coordinator or a decision by the department's working group for study matters.