Cross-Registration

The Spring 2026 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 will be open from January 12, at 10 a.m. until January 30 at 10 a.m.

All classes are six points unless otherwise noted.  

Spring 2026 Class Offerings

Instructor: Robert Smith
Meets: Wednesdays, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.; January 28 - May 13
Points: 6

Description: This class is designed for students who want to understand and report on the global economy but want to tell those stories in broadcast form.

Audio and video can bring the characters of business to life. They can be the fastest media when news breaks. They can also be the most immersive form of storytelling, explaining to an audience how money works and how it affects us all. In class, we will focus on audio, but we will also demonstrate how those broadcast skills can be used in the business TV world.

Each class will have two parts. You’ll learn how to think like an economist when tackling the questions that will be the most relevant over the next four years, including:

  • What happens when a country puts up trade barriers?
  • How do tax cuts affect an economy?
  • What are the consequences of restrictions on immigration?
  • Should regulators break up the giant tech companies?
     

Then you’ll learn the writing and technical skills to cover those stories. Over the semester, we’ll have you work in a variety of audio formats: live reporting, interviews, short features, and an explanatory podcast episode. 

Instructor: Giannina Segnini
Meets: Mondays, 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.; January 26-May 11
Points: 6

Description: This spring, you'll have the opportunity to embark on a journey, as Star Trek's Captain Picard once said, "where no one has gone before." 

The "Using Data to Investigate Across Borders" class will be the first group of investigative journalists to dive into a largely uncharted beat: genetic engineering and its global impact.

In collaboration with scientists and cross-border networks, we will explore how researchers are editing, modifying, and enhancing the genes of plants, animals, and humans using revolutionary tools like CRISPR and other emerging bioengineering technologies. This course will address both the limitless possibilities and the significant risks posed by gene editing, including ethical concerns, the implications for future generations, and the global lack of regulation.

The discovery of CRISPR brought hopes of curing genetic disorders, optimizing food production, and even reversing climate change. Yet, it also sparked fears of misuse—such as the creation of "designer babies," engineered pathogens, or even armies of enhanced super soldiers. 

Five years after urgent warnings from scientists, there is still no comprehensive international regulation on gene editing, and no cross-border investigative project has taken a rigorous, data-driven approach to understand the full scope of what is being done, why, and who is funding it.

This class will take on this challenge. We will focus on identifying and analyzing key actors in the genetic engineering space by collecting, transforming, and connecting different types of data—from research papers and clinical trials to government grants, investments, patents, and more. Students will learn how to build an international database to reveal the networks behind genetic research, bringing transparency to this underreported field.

Work by previous students in this class:

Instructor: Jon Keegan
Meets: Wednesdays 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.; January 28 - May 13
Points: 6

Description: Data visualization has earned a hard-won seat at the table in today’s newsrooms. Visual journalists are telling powerful, data-driven stories that change minds, influence policy debates, and reveal patterns previously hidden from the public. A growing ecosystem of feature-rich visualization tools now makes it easier than ever to present complex information clearly—while also creating an overwhelming range of options to navigate.

This course will teach you how to gather, analyze, and interrogate data for journalism. We will learn to organize information by location, time, hierarchy, and relationships to tell clear, compelling stories.  You will sketch, iterate, prototype, and refine visual ideas using a range of tools and techniques—some code-based, some not. We will focus on choosing the right approach for each story, and on writing narratives that are grounded in data visualizations. 

This class will include guest visits from leading visual journalists, who will share how they use data visualization in their work and walk us through their process. We will also develop regular habits of reviewing current visual journalism in the media and practicing constructive, creative critique.

Instructor: Helen Benedict
Meets: Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.; January 22 - May 14
Points: 6

Description: Deep interviewing, oral history, research, a passion for social justice and a love of eloquent writing -- these are the tools we will use in this class to combine writing and immersive reporting into beautifully written journalism about the important issues of our times. To get there, we will study nonfiction writers whose work is as compelling and graceful as that of the best novelists, such as Valeria Luiselli, James Baldwin, Kao Kalia Yang, Sonia Nazario, Donovan X. Ramsey, Joan Didion, Susan Orlean, and Ryszard Kapuscinski.

Students read and analyze these and other writers, and write a few short writing exercises and one long article in order to develop compelling stories and a voice. The class will include discussions of student work and of the assigned authors with a goal to publish.

Instructor: Howard French
Meets: Mondays, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.; January 26 - May 11
Points: 6

Description: 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.

Instructors: Emily Bell and Michael Keller
Meets: Wednesdays, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.; January 28 - May 13
Points: 6

Description: 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 2024 election cycle. Student evaluation will depend on weekly assignments, classroom participation and the presentation of a final group or individual project.

Instructors: Kelly Whiteside and Sean Gregory
Meets: Wednesdays, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.; January 28 - May 13
Points: 6

Description: 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. 

Tommy John Surgery More Prevalent Among Youth PItchers Than Pros, Palm Beach Post

Bruce Brown Is The Nets’ ‘Swiss Army Knife,’ New York Times

The Making of Nikola Jokić, Sports Illustrated

Books Taking Backseat to Horses for Reylu Gutierrez, Bloodhorse

Jemma Reekie delights at smashing two British records at New York Millrose Games, The Herald (Scotland)

Instructor: Jika Gonzalez
Meets: Thursdays, 9 to 12 and 2 to 5 PM; January 22 - May 14

Description: This course explores photojournalism in the social documentary tradition, emphasizing the power of visual storytelling to examine human rights and social justice issues. Students will complete several photo assignments and produce one or two major photography projects.

Through lectures, fieldwork, critiques, and guest speakers, students will study the aesthetic, ethical, and journalistic foundations of impactful visual work. They’ll also learn practical skills — including interviewing, editing, post-production, and archiving.

This class will be held in collaboration with the Bronx Documentary Center (BDC), select classes will take place in the Bronx, where students will engage with community-based documentary practice, analog photography, and the ethics of visual storytelling. Students are expected to volunteer at the BDC during the course of the semester.

Notes: 

  • Fees:
    • $75 if you want to use the JSchool’s gear for the class; no fee for using your own.
    • This class requires subscribing to the Adobe Creative Suite ($240) if you did not already subscribe for a fall class.

Instructor: Andie Tucher
Meets: Tuesday/Thursday, 2:40-3:55 p.m.; beginning on January 22
Points: 3

Open for self-registration in Vergil

Description: An introduction to the conventions, traditions, values, assumptions, and arguments that have shaped the institution of journalism and its central role in public life. Through close readings/viewings of current and classic works of journalism as well as secondary sources, we explore some of the Big Questions: What is journalism for? What is its role in public life, and how has that changed over time? Is objectivity dead--or should it be? How have new technologies affected our expectations? Is sensationalism bad for you? Can anything be done about "fake news"? What is the future of journalism? The focus is on the American experience from the colonial era to the present day, though it will be placed in a global context.

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 SIPA media 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.

Direct any questions to Melanie Huff.