As Colorado's wildfire season starts earlier and lasts longer with experts warning of a 'new normal,' students in this class will learn how media are responding, and develop best practices for reporting on wildfires in the West. Students will hear from those who cover wildfires, will take field trips to sites, meet with scientists, and more.

Full title: Political Journalism: How to report, analyze, and write intelligently on political issues and events. Students will get deep instruction in how to cover political theory, political systems and power, learning how to write with balance, context, and skepticism of spin, as well as essential training in recognizing political news, cultivating sources and conveying meaning in areas of political reporting including elections, legislation, education, social movements and race. This course will survey the work of some of the best political journalists and journalism through history, including insider accounts on working with Bob Woodward, one of the journalists who broke the Watergate scandal. Students will also get hands-on experience writing political stories and creating multimedia political content, with the possibility of being published in Colorado Politics, a statewide political journal.

Music is a fundamental part of everyday life. For many listeners, the music they choose reflects who they are. Friendships are formed on the basis of shared musical tastes. Despite these close connections between identity/socialization and music, writing about music can be a challenge. The intuition with which people find their music is not matched by an intuition that guides the writing about that music. This course will explore the various ways in which people put music to words in order to help students develop some music writing practices of their own.

Newsletters in the email inbox are the latest trend in digital journalism as both high-profile and emerging writers build audiences on publications like Substack. 'Reporters are leaving newsrooms for newsletters, their own ‘mini media empire’' The Washington Post reported last year. But, 'is Substack the media future we want?' asked The New Yorker. Writing for newsletters is different from traditional journalism, but plenty of the same rules apply. Many established publications these days now have their own newsletters. The Coloradoan newspaper, for example, has nine. Students in this class will learn about the rise of newsletter journalism while also learning how to practice it themselves. They will develop their own ideas for a reported newsletter throughout the block, cultivate an audience, and hear from others who have found success with inbox journalism.

This course invites students to commit acts of journalism. Led by a longtime news reporter, students will explore how, and why, journalists try to get to the bottom of things and make sense in words that can serve as springboards for societal action. We’ll investigate how climate warming is reshaping the West and changing relationships with nature. Readings will include enterprise news articles, a tight theory of journalism as the basis for democratic self-rule, and excerpts from nonfiction writing from the West. This course will have a 1-week field trip component at BACA. Dates TBD.

In this class, you will learn the fundamentals of audio reporting and production. We will teach you how to gather and edit exceptional audio, interviewing techniques, how to write for broadcast and how to structure and produce compelling news and feature stories. Through a series of ever more challenging assignments –both individual and group; in class and out --you will gather the expertise to produce an NPR style piece of audio journalism. Along the way, you will learn how to pitch a story and come to understand the ethics of journalism. This will be a hands on workshop with a heavy workload of reporting assignments that we will critique together. A fair amount of class time will be dedicated to individual edit sessions of stories you are producing. The final project will be a sound rich 5 to 7 minute piece worthy of broadcast.

This course explores the impacts of secrecy and surveillance on the exercise of democracy. How do secrets affect the governed and the state? How does surveillance affect the watcher and the watched? Is informed consent possible in a national security state? Who defines national security? Who benefits from the definition? How are civil rights safeguarded, and how is privacy redefined? How do secrecy and surveillance, in the digital age influence the practice of journalism and fhe exercise of citizenship?

A tradition of investigative reporting and journalism that serves the public interest goes back to the earliest days of the American press. How it looked and operated has changed over the years along with the way our culture has changed, our laws and politics have changed, and, of course, how our technology has changed. By the end of this class, students will have a grounding in the history and importance of investigative reporting and public service journalism. They will also practice it themselves, from obtaining public records and uncovering secrets to putting them into proper context. They’ll learn how best to identify, cultivate, and work with sources to illuminate untold stories and will leave with a firm grasp of the effort involved in doing such work and the ethics of how to do it responsibly. Overall, they will learn how to go deeper into their storytelling through investigation, documentation, sourcing, evidence-building, and execution— and why doing such work is so vital. Along the way, they’ll meet some of the journalists whose work they’ve read to hear about the story behind the story.

The Crime Reporting course provides a grounding in crime writing skills as well as an introduction to journalistic practices, research methods, and current challenges facing the field. We will learn how to identify and develop story ideas, conduct interviews and other research, and craft crime narratives. We will study influential examples of crime writing, discuss different aspects of the criminal justice system, from police to courts to prisons, and explore how media coverage can impact the events being covered, with the aim of developing a critical appreciation of this vital form of journalism.

There's no way to keep politics and current events out of sports. Though some have argued athletes should 'shut up and dribble' and media members should 'stick to sports,' the truth is that sports are a crucial part of our culture. So don't stick to sports. Explore how the sporting world intersects with race, gender and politics. In this introductory journalism course, we’ll focus on sports writing, with a particular focus on how the world of sports extends beyond the field, the court, the waves and the mountains. Initially focusing on how to write and interview, we eventually move on to developing students’ news judgment. Students will get an opportunity to work on written journalism, social-media journalism, podcasts and/or on-camera storytelling. They will engage in reflection and discussion to think critically about the current state of sports journalism in 2023. We will also focus on how to break into the competitive industry.

Political Journalism: How to report, analyze, and write intelligently on political issues and events. Students will get deep instruction in how to cover political theory, political systems and power, learning how to write with balance, context, and skepticism of spin, as well as essential training in recognizing political news, cultivating sources and conveying meaning in areas of political reporting including elections, legislation, education, social movements and race. This course will survey the work of some of the best political journalists and journalism through history, including insider accounts on working with Bob Woodward, one of the journalists who broke the Watergate scandal. Students will also get hands-on experience writing political stories and creating multimedia political content, with the possibility of being published in Colorado Politics, a statewide political journal.

Media 2070 is a project that lives 50 years into the afrofuture. In this course, students will learn to identify the media as a system and survey the history of harm that the media have inflicted on communities of color for centuries. They will learn about media reparations and the cultural and infrastructural interventions needed to achieve them. Through the exploration of reparative policies, cultural strategies and frameworks for care, repair and accountability in media institutions, we will guide students into the year 2070 — where stories are free to flourish.

Newsletters in the email inbox are the latest trend in digital journalism as both high-profile and emerging writers build audiences on publications like Substack. 'Reporters are leaving newsrooms for newsletters, their own ‘mini media empire,' The Washington Post reported last year. But, 'is Substack the media future we want?' asked The New Yorker. Writing for newsletters is different from traditional journalism, but plenty of the same rules apply. Many established publications these days now have their own newsletters. Students in this class will learn about the rise of newsletter journalism while also learning how to practice it themselves. They will develop their own ideas for a reported newsletter throughout the block, cultivate an audience, and hear from others who have found success with inbox journalism.

This course explores the impacts of secrecy and surveillance on the exercise of democracy. How do secrets affect the governed and the state? How does surveillance affect the watcher and the watched? Is informed consent possible in a national security state? Who defines national security? Who benefits from the definition? How are civil rights safeguarded, and how is privacy redefined? How do secrecy and surveillance, in the digital age influence the practice of journalism and fhe exercise of citizenship? 1 unit - Alters, Lindau.

Taught by Heather Perlberg. Students will learn the nuts and bolts of reporting on business and finance from Heather Perlberg, a CC alum and an award-winning senior reporter for Bloomberg who covers wealth, private equity, Wall Street's biggest firms, and the billionaires who lead them, including their growing role in the world of finance and the impact they have on our lives.

As Colorado's wildfire season starts earlier and lasts longer with experts warning of a 'new normal,' students in this class will learn how media are responding, and develop best practices for reporting on wildfires in the West. Students will hear from those who cover wildfires, will take field trips to sites, meet with scientists, and more.