Launch Your Journalism Career

Become a Journalist: Report the News! Specialization, Michigan State University

About This Specialization

5 courses

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Diploma in Journalism

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Diploma in Journalism describes the principles, practices and methods involved in all aspects of the journalistic process. The course begins by introducing you to the key elements of the journalistic process such as identifying what is and what is not newsworthy, how to identify stories which are new, unusual or significant, and how to distinguish between a big news story and a small one. You will learn about organizing and writing the feature story itself: you will learn how to define a feature story, what the basic approaches to writing the feature story are and what different types of feature stories there are. The approaches involved in getting the required information for a feature story and putting it into an easily understood form is also explained. You will also learn about the different roles and responsibilities in a newsroom and how to use story weighting to assess a story's value and newsworthiness. You will learn how journalists must live up to the highest standards of integrity such as truth, fairness and sincerity, and you will learn why journalists must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.