Featured Courses
A rich menu of mandatory and elective courses – both professional and academic – is available for you. Here are a few of the highlights. You can find a full listing in the graduate calendar.
*Not all listed courses are available to first-year MJs. Check with your Graduate Administrator.
A sampling of courses
JOUR 5002 Journalism, Race and Diversity
When it comes to issues of race and diversity, the news media have always had particular responsibilities. What should the range of responsibilities be in today’s society? How have expectations changed over the years? Where should we look for solutions that will enable journalism to better reflect the rich diversity of the communities it serves? This seminar will help you examine journalism’s role in race and diversity, and reflect on your own obligations and approaches as a journalist.
JOUR 5200 Introduction to Reporting
This is your deep plunge into covering the news. You’ll learn everything from how to find a news story, identify sources, and write a news story to how to use photography, graphics and social media to get the story out. Classes include lectures, field trips, guests from the working media and discussions of your work. And you’ll get plenty of chance to practice your new skills.
JOUR 5202 Broadcast Journalism: Video
Journalism at its best can shake the foundations of attitudes and assumptions, policies and governments. Video journalism – the journalism of pictures and words – can do so in even more potent ways. Think of images from Ukraine or Syria. Or the forest fires in BC or the Amazon. The protestor and the tank in Tiananmen Square. Refugees desperately trying to reach friendly shores. This course teaches you visual literacy and the skills you need to work as a video journalist in a digital age.
JOUR 5202 Broadcast Journalism: Audio
Radio remains an important medium for breaking news and long-form documentaries and audio is becoming an increasingly popular format for creative and innovative storytellers. This intense six-week workshop offers solid training in the expertise you will need in order to produce outstanding audio journalism for a variety of media platforms.
JOUR 5706 In-Depth Reporting Seminar
Knowing where to look for more information and ask tough questions is key to public affairs reporting. You’ll learn how to develop a longform story, sharpen your research skills, and find and dig into original documents to support your one-of-a-kind storytelling. In this class you will produce an analytical in-depth story and kick-start your Master’s Research Project.
JOUR 5001 Entrepreneurial Journalism
The journalism landscape is always changing, and this course is designed to help you develop the skills you need to thrive, including building a freelance career or starting something entirely new. In this class you will work on your own and with classmates to learn how to market your journalistic skills, from honing your story pitches to developing a business plan.
JOUR 5709 Creative Non-Fiction
Take time to experiment with storytelling in this optional elective course. In this class, you will spend time discussing examples of literary journalism, non-fiction comics, memoirs and more. You will also report and write stories of your own to find and test your writing style.
"The Beat" course options
JOUR 5300 Special Topic: The Power and Politics of Government
Accreditation to the Parliamentary Press Gallery is your passport to an in-depth exploration of Canada’s government, public policy and politics. Witness the cut and thrust of Parliamentary debate and committee hearings, reporting from the very centre of the action. Each week, there will be in-class discussion of the country’s major events, policy announcements and political developments.
JOUR 5303 Specialized Journalism: Health and Science
Strong journalism about health science is vital to an informed public. Misinformation spreads like a virus on social media and still finds a spot in legacy media: consider the harm caused by anti-vaccine advocacy, food faddism, disease mongering. This course will teach you how to report accurately on new studies and emerging treatments. You’ll learn to use sound research, credible sources, and compelling techniques in health and medical story telling while you meet and interview leading scientists and health journalists.
JOUR 5304 Specialized Journalism: Environment and Science
Climate change is reshaping the planet with far reaching consequences for people and places, plants and animals, air and water. What does the astute journalist need to know to cover climate and the other science disciplines that make up the latest research on the environment? You’ll learn about the Arctic’s melting permafrost, the rise in sea levels, extreme weather conditions and the resulting changes in agriculture and food security. You’ll meet the researchers who work on these challenging areas of science and the science journalists who now cover their stories.
JOUR 5308 Specialized Journalism: Sports and Sport Culture
More than play-by-play – you’ll cover live sporting events and learn to look beyond the field to find stories. You’ll read some of the greatest works of sports journalism and analyze some not-so-good sports writing in order to spot the difference. You’ll meet real athletes and sportswriters and dive into discussions about how best to master the craft.
JOUR 5309 Specialized Journalism: Arts and Culture
Arts and culture journalism remains the most satisfying of writing genres, with opportunities for analysis and storytelling, and an avid readership online. This course introduces key issues while teaching hands-on techniques for writing profiles, reviews, etc. Topics include our celebrity cult, the unholy power of publicists, how to recognize bias or manipulation from sources, the pitfall of “fan-ism,” and the indispensable uses of digital media for your reporting.
JOUR 5311 Specialized Journalism: Justice and the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Canada has an enormous effect on our everyday lives. The highest court’s justices routinely make decisions on our rights, free speech, healthcare, criminal justice, religion, immigration and refugees and other pressing issues of our time. It is, therefore, unsurprising that the law intersects with almost every area of journalism at one time or another. In this workshop course, you will cover the Supreme Court of Canada as a beat. You will attend court proceedings as a class and there will be latitude for you to explore your particular interests by writing an enterprise piece for your final project.
JOUR 5313 Specialized Journalism: Reporting in Indigenous Communities
In this course, you will learn about key features of Indigenous history and culture in Ontario and Quebec, analyze representation of Indigenous Peoples in media, and learn how to integrate Indigenous protocols and ethics in your own reporting practices. Working in teams, you will study and practice reporting in Indigenous communities in the city of Ottawa and the Ottawa Valley region, expanding your research, writing, photography, editing and design skills to deliver a dynamic and publication-ready multimedia story package.
4000-level elective options
JOUR 4402 Professional Skills: Longform Writing
Believe it or not, in the age of texts and tweets, longform journalism, and many of the magazines (print and online) that publish it, are thriving. In this course, you’ll read a wide range of classic and contemporary non-fiction, learn how to work with an editor, master the art and craft of writing long magazine-style pieces, and explore the world of longform writing in Canada and beyond.
JOUR 4403 Professional Skills: Strategic Communication
This course is about the practice and business of strategic communication. Designed for students intending to pursue careers in journalism or communications, it’s a lab-based course built around a collaborative approach to producing professional-level strategic communications plans for selected organizations. The student teams produce workable strategic solutions to meet the real communications issues and needs of their client organizations.
JOUR 4502 Journalism and Conflict
Conflict is at the heart of human society and for as long as people have been fighting among themselves, someone has been there to observe what is happening and relay information to others. This course examines a range of issues dealing with journalism and conflict with a particular emphasis on the vantage point of the journalist but also through discussion of interdisciplinary literature and academic research. To be confirmed: a capstone military simulation exercise held on a Canadian Forces base, with students playing the role of journalists reporting from a war zone.
JOUR 4506 Investigating Journalism: Trauma-Informed Journalism
Journalists often swoop in at the most difficult moment of a person’s life – the aftermath of a violent incident, the tragic death of a loved one, or the culmination of a painful criminal trial. In this course – the first of its kind in Canada – you will learn how to prepare for the ethical, practical, and emotional challenges of reporting accurately and sensitively on traumatic events and individuals who have experienced trauma.
Please note: undergraduate students have priority registration in 4000-level courses. Not all are offered every year, nor are they all open to first-year MJs. For more information, contact your Graduate Supervisor or Graduate Administrator