Cross-Registration

The Spring 2024 classes listed below are available for cross registration by seniors and graduate students from other divisions of Columbia University.

It is not possible to self-register for Journalism School courses. To request admission to a class, students must submit the cross registration request form. The form is open from January 8 at 10 a.m. until January 26 at 10 a.m.

All the courses listed below carry six points unless otherwise noted.

 

Spring 2024 Class Offerings

How to Report in a Hostile Information Environment

Day/Time: W 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Instructor: Emily Bell and Michael Keller
Dates: Wednesday, January 24 – Wednesday, May 8

Watch this video to learn more about the class.

The convergence of all types of information into digital formats has created a new and confusing information landscape for both consumers and practitioners. Fake news, campaigns aimed at everything from healthcare (via the anti-vax movement), through to influencing government and radicalizing populations to acts of violence or terrorism are all now carried put through the same vectors used to carry mainstream journalism and entertainment.

Journalists are inevitably on the frontlines on this seismic change in how information can be used to leverage power and affect the real world. Understanding how to report this environment is an emerging and increasingly important beat. The ease with which large social media, search and other data aggregation platforms allow for publishing and dissemination of all types of content has created great opportunities and produced unanticipated threats. Sources of news, advertising, propaganda, and many other types of content are often difficult to distinguish from each other and easy to disseminate through frictionless sharing. The fluid nature of technology platforms means that information or content targeted at individuals for a particular outcome will shapeshift between formats and techniques.

Understanding the dynamics of platforms, how the targeting of messages works, how to detect the provenance of sources are all now required skills for journalists. Journalists have an important role in investigating this landscape as a new type of media beat, of explaining the levers of influence and harm to their audiences and holding to account the individuals, companies and governments who misuse this power.

The skills needed to parse the information environment, weigh influence campaigns and the often covert use of social platforms and messaging systems will be increasingly important in many areas of reporting. The journalistic role inevitably makes reporters and their sources targets for online harassment, doxxing and deliberate campaigns to either influence or silence them. Journalists must take into account threats, how to model them and how to protect themselves, their work and their sources from these types of attacks.

This course is intended to give students the critical framework for examining the roots and dynamics of the technical changes that have created the information crisis, and the technical skills for conducting their own investigations and reporting into the problem. The format will be a mixture of lectures and skills classes, using the lens of the 2020 election cycle. Student evaluation will depend on weekly assignments, classroom participation and the presentation of a final group or individual project

The Information Warfare Reporting class will be part of this year’s all city Tech Media and Democracy class.  What this means is that the Monday evening section joins a mostly lecture-based class that meets virtually with students from NYU, Cornell Tech, CUNY and Pratt Institute, to take an interdisciplinary look at the hard problems created by large scale technology’s role in society, from disinformation to algorithmic injustice. It is a great opportunity to hear from stellar speakers, ask them questions and hear other perspectives. Wednesday’s class will be a mixture of lectures, discussion and practical skills, with guest speakers zooming in or appearing in-person.

Day/Time: M 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Instructor: Howard French
Dates: Monday, January 22 – Monday, May 6

This seminar will sample coverage of broad swaths of the world that are sometimes called the Global South, and were once commonly referred to as the Third World. Together, we will discuss why these parts of the world have so long been portrayed in distorted ways, and ask also why, considering their rising demographic and economic weight, they continue to be under-covered by leading international news organizations?

The course will draw prominently upon examples from Africa, Asia and Latin America. For classroom discussion we will also read studies of international population trends, migration dynamics, global economics, history and political science. Our ultimate aim is to propose better coverage models, both in terms of general principles and concrete examples. In this class, students will pitch, report and write three articles, ranging from off-the-news features to analysis and commentary.

Day/Time: W 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Instructor: Gershom Gorenberg
Dates: Wednesday, January 24 – Wednesday, May 8

Watch this video to get an understanding of the class.

A good work of history reads like a novel in which all the details are true.

In this course, you will learn to frame a piece of history as a story, uncover sources, and build a narrative that casts the past and present in a new light - and that keeps readers turning the page.

We will develop skills for finding the historical paper trail in archives, and for using sources including memoirs, newspapers, and popular culture. With a focus on book-length writing, we will work on uncovering the plot line and character arcs in actual events.

To expand your repertoire, we will look at fine historical writing, especially by journalists. Examining work on American race relations and the Israeli-Arab conflict, we will look at the relationship between facts, accepted narratives, and the writer's personal perspective - and at the impact of new writing on "what everyone knows." In short, we'll see how a writer can change history.

During the semester, you will lay out the storyline for a book-length work of history. You will find sources and write one extended episode of the story. Finally, you will create a detailed chapter outline for a book and rewrite your sample episode in response to new sources and intensive workshop discussion of your writing.

By the end of the course, each student should have the materials for a book proposal, along with the skills for enriching magazine and news writing with reporting on the past.

Day/Time: R 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Instructor: Dale Maharidge
Dates: Thursday, January 18 – Thursday, May 9

The secret formula for many non-fiction books is that they are in some part first-person — most of my books contain roughly 80 percent third-person reporting and research, and the rest me in one way or another. How a character reacts to another human being can often provide the most revealing portrait of that person. The not-so-secret device for many podcasts is a narrator who must use “I.”

The aim of this course will be to master the use of first person with emphasis on reporting, and literary writing. Using yourself in the assignment for this class doesn’t mean a non-reported essay, or a light feature on something such as Fashion Week. This class is about storytelling rooted in journalism about the myriad social-political-cultural issues facing the world today. Students will pursue newsworthy stories that lend themselves to using first person, in the spirit of writers such as James Agee, Ted Conover, Joan Didion, Alma Guillermoprieto, and William T. Vollmann. This course is aimed at students who want to produce serious narrative journalism, such as the type of storytelling found in books and podcasts, and for magazines or long-form sites. Students will work hard, essentially this is a master’s project in a class. They will craft a final 2,000-word-plus written piece, to be developed over drafts and workshopping.

Day/Time: W 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Instructor: Kelly Whiteside and Sean Gregory
Dates: Wednesday, January 24 – Wednesday, May 8

Sports occupies a special place in American society. Electronic and digital media props up its finances by giving sporting events - professional, college and high school - staggering blocks of time every day. Sports talk radio and countless websites and podcasts dissect every play, every individual and every move, often adding to the stifling pressure on athletes, coaches, owners and administrators. News outlets keep readers by devoting significant percentages of their resources to local, national and international sports coverage.

Sport has evolved into a complex part of American life that requires thinking, well-trained, well-read and fundamentally sound journalists. A sports journalist must be able to quickly and clearly tell readers and viewers what is happening on the field, on the court or on the track, and the modern sports journalist must have a solid background on issues as diverse as medicine, public health, race, social justice, politics, labor, performance enhancing drugs, stadium financing, Title IX, gender, and youth sports. A sports journalist must understand the fascinating history of this world as well as social media and emerging trends and must continue the tradition of adding to some of the best writing, reporting and commentary in journalism. This course will address all of these matters and assign you to cover professional and college games, write feature pieces and columns as well as longer, issue-oriented takeouts and investigative stories dictated by the news. 

In recent years, stories from our class have appeared in various national and international outlets. 

Days/Times: T 6:00 — 9:00 p.m. AND W 1:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Instructor: Daniel Alarcón
Dates: Tuesday, January 23 – Wednesday, May 8

How do you tell compelling, moving stories in sound? How do you cover this city to produce creative, beautiful stories that stay with the listener weeks, even months later?

Turns out it isn’t so easy. The goal of this course is to teach the skills of long-form audio journalism, the techniques used at established shows like This American Life or Radiolab, with a focus on life in New York City. We aim for a combination of in-depth reporting and strong character-driven narrative. We’ll spend a lot of time talking – obsessing – about creative approaches to storytelling, narrative structure, writing, as well as learning a sound-first approach to reporting.

You will work very hard in this course – but we, your professors, will too. We'll be joined by the occasional guest, producers and editors from some of our favorite shows, who'll discuss their work and offer insight as they listen to yours. You’ll produce three audio stories in the course of the semester, working with one of the instructors as your lead editor, and learn the skills of tracking, scoring and mixing along the way; but perhaps just as important, as a member of this newsroom, you'll participate in the conversation around every piece the class produces, gaining valuable editorial experience as well.

Some published work by previous students:

Days/Times: M 1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Instructor: Giannina Segnini
Dates: Monday, January 22 – Monday, May 6

Exponential amounts of information about the world are being produced daily, and journalists everywhere need to have a global mindset if they are to write about organized crime, corruption, human trafficking, global trade, and threats to the environment.

We live in an increasingly borderless world. Goods, money, people and ideas flow freely across borders, thanks to technology and the liberalization of customs and money controls. We all benefit from globalization and the free flow of commerce that it makes possible. But there's a dark side: A borderless world also makes it easier for crooks and criminals to do their work.

Around the world, journalists are developing techniques to cope with the globalization of crime, corruption and environmental damage. They are adopting strategies that include the smart use of data and collaboration across borders. The volume and velocity with which information and data are being produced and the variety of open sources currently available make it possible to develop reporting strategies that are truly global.

This course will prepare students to find global data, process and analyze it, and to report on it from New York while working with sources and other journalists overseas thanks to our partnership with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Students will learn skills like doing background checks on people and companies, mining the social web, tracking offshore entities, assets and cargo across borders. They will be divided into reporting teams, and by the end of the semester, will be able to find, scrape, consolidate, analyze and visualize data in the context of a big global story.

During the presentation for the "Using Data to Investigate Across Borders" class, I mentioned that we would be investigating critical minerals and invited you to pitch story ideas on this subject. I am pleased to announce that, thanks to a collaborative agreement with a group of renowned scientists, we will also be studying Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) using data. This means that in January, when the class begins, you will have the opportunity to choose between these two subjects.

Work by previous students in this class:

Days/Times: T 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Instructor: Michael Schudson
Dates: Tuesday, January 23 – Tuesday, May 7

This seminar introduces students to that part of the sociology of mass media that takes news or journalism as its central subject. Sociology, like other social sciences, paid little attention to journalism until journalism as it has developed became more problematic in the 1950s and 1960s (for reasons we will take up in the seminar).  From that point on, a serious social science-based study of journalism began to emerge and we will review some of its influential texts as well as very recent additions to the literature. Most of this work centers on the United States, but comparative studies in news analysis have grown in the past twenty years and we will attend to some of this work, too.  Several approaches to understanding the impact of the digital revolution on journalism will also be discussed.

Registration Details

To request cross-registration in a Journalism School course, please complete this form. Request forms are processed on a first-come, first-serve basis; and spots are assigned to non-Journalism graduate students based on available space, with top priority given to IMC SIPA students.

If you have more than one course for which you want to be considered, please submit a separate form for each class. You do not need to submit multiple forms for the same cross-registration request. Please be certain that you are not requesting a class that conflicts with any of your other classes.

Please note that this is only a request, and CJS cannot guarantee your request will be accommodated.

If your form is submitted correctly, you will receive a request confirmation e-mail within 24 hours. Please remember to include the @columbia.edu after your UNI.

You will not receive an e-mail from the Student Life office saying that your request was granted or not granted. Check your class schedule to determine if your request was granted. All requests remain on file during the cross-registration period (January 8 – 26 at 10 a.m.).

Direct any questions to Melanie Huff.