The Media and Social Issues: Writing about Racial Justice in the United States

Major U.S. news outlets have a long history of excluding, misrepresenting and maligning Black, Latinx, Indigenous and Asian communities. In fact, a significant portion of America's news business was built on the publication of ads for the sale and capture of enslaved people. In this course, we will explore the ways that journalists have succeeded and failed in covering marginalized racial communities, both in the distant and the more recent past. Students will study many examples of excellent reporting on race and take on their own original enterprise assignment, learning to find, pitch, report and write a polished, newsworthy feature story.