Journalism and Public Policy: Navigating Washington in the Digital Media Age

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

The U.S. capital offers a wealth of storylines for curious journalists, but finding and bringing those stories to light requires a familiarity with the available research tools and the quirks of Washington’s institutions. This course provides a week-by-week survey of the busiest beats in D.C. paired with practical newsgathering methodology, including working with open-source data, tracking federal lawsuits and mining federal regulations and legislation for newsworthy information that drives impact journalism. Understanding the headwinds facing the journalism industry and the evolving formats and presentations that news organizations have developed to adapt will be a theme throughout the course. Within that shifting landscape, the course will focus on how to approach and interrogate a variety of Washington institutions and separate news from the noise. It will explore how to translate information gleaned from Congress to courts to federal agencies into reporting built for the digital era.