In this course students will be introduced to key media writing skills. The course will cover a range of genres and roles in the journalism and communication field. Students will learn the fundamentals of journalistic prose, research, interviews and news story structure. The emphasis will be on writing for print journalism but the skills learnt will form the basis of a portfolio of skills that will be useful across all media and communications contexts. Students will learn how to structure and edit a news story, how to use quotes and how to engage readers.

Student will read and analyse a range of news stories and will learn to research, interview for and write print media news stories. This will include both 'hard' and 'colour' news stories. Students will learn about the values and production constraints that guide the selection of news items for a range of print and online media.

This course engages with the history of the news genre and with the question: what is news? Students will learn about balance, bias and ethics. This course will also require students to think about the ethical and professional aspects of their work and its social, economic and political role.