New York University
Department of Journalism
New York, NY
Overview
New York University, established in 1831, has traditionally focused on providing an education for people of all economic and social backgrounds. It began with a student body of 158 and has expanded to 48,000 students, who come from 158 countries and every state, attending thirteen schools and colleges. The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication is the second-oldest such department in the nation. It is consistently ranked among the country's top programs, most notably for the excellence of its faculty members, all of whom are working journalists producing articles, books, and documentaries.
About 125 students enrolled in the program in fall 2004. About 65 percent are women, 20 percent are international students, and 5 percent are part-time students. Ten percent received assistantships, and many others received federal loans.
Students graduating from New York University with a master's in journalism have gone on to work at a variety of publications, including the New York Times, New York Daily News, Newsday, PARADE, The Associated Press, ABC-TV, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, ESPN-TV, the Pittsburgh Press, Cosmopolitan, American Heritage, American Health, Bloomberg News Service, Business Week, Financial World, Harper's Bazaar, New York Magazine, Wall Street Journal On-Line, Music Television, Americana Magazine, New York Post, and others.
The Location and Community
New York University is an integral part of the metropolitan community of New York City-the business, cultural, artistic, and financial center of the nation. The center for graduate study is located at Washington Square in Greenwich Village, famous for its contributions to the fine arts, literature, and drama.
Programs of study and degree requirements
The Department of Journalism offers a Master of Arts degree program designed to prepare students for careers as professional journalists. Concentrations include magazine, newspaper, or broadcast journalism. Each of these concentrations requires 36 credits consisting of nine courses of 4 credits each. The Department also offers three specialized programs. The Business and Economic Reporting Program educates students who aspire to cover critical stories in business, finance, and economics. Students take specialized business writing courses, as well as courses at NYU's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. The program takes three semesters of study plus part of one summer, and requires thirteen courses for 46 credits. Students receive an M.A. in journalism and a Certificate in Business and Economic Reporting. The Science and Environmental Reporting Program (SERP) prepares students to cover stories in science, medicine, and the environment. The majority of students hold undergraduate or graduate degrees in the sciences. The program requires three semesters of study plus part of one summer. Students take eleven courses for 48 credits and receive an M.A. in journalism and a Certificate in Science and Environmental Reporting. The Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program equips students with a broad background in cultural issues, as well as the reportorial and analytical skills needed to write on the arts, popular culture, the media, social issues, social groups, and milieus. Students take nine courses in this concentration for 36 credits during three semesters of study. The Department of Journalism also offers joint degree programs with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (M.A. in journalism and Latin America and Caribbean studies), the Institute of French Studies (M.A. in journalism and French studies), the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies (M.A. in journalism and Near Eastern studies), and the Department of Biology (M.S. in biomedical journalism). Applicants file one application and must be accepted by both departments.
Facilities & Resources
The department uses New York City as a laboratory, sending students out on assignments to work alongside professionals under deadline pressure. Department facilities include state-of-the-art computer equipment and research databases, classrooms fashioned to generate an authentic newsroom atmosphere, and a fully equipped broadcast facility. Students also receive free Internet accounts. The department is also home to the Center for War, Peace and the News Media, which works to improve foreign news coverage in the U.S. media and conduct media assistance programs throughout the world. The Elmer Holmes Bobst Library is the centerpiece of seven NYU libraries with total holdings of more than 4.1 million volumes. There are also extensive audio and video collections.
Expenses and Aid
The 2004-05 cost per credit at NYU is $971. Each semester, there is also a registration fee of $292 for the first credit and $52 for each additional credit. These registration fees may vary for the spring semester. Health insurance registration is mandatory for graduate students unless they are covered under another plan.
Financial Aid:
Graduate assistantships provide tuition remission and a stipend. Duties include participation in faculty research, teaching assistance, and other activities related to departmental needs. Assistantships are awarded on the basis of merit-undergraduate GPA, GRE scores, and quality of writing in the personal essay. As very few fellowships/assistantships are available, the Graduate School of Arts and Science encourages students to apply for assistance through the many external organizations that provide funding for graduate study.
Housing/Living Expenses:
The cost of living in New York City depends upon the student's spending habits and whether an apartment is shared. Rents start at $1200 per month. Campus housing varies from shared studios to two- and three-room apartments; the charges also vary, but are generally comparable to area rents. Campus meal plans are also available. At least $500 a month should be allotted for food, transportation, and entertainment.
How to Apply / Application
Applicants must have a minimum undergraduate GPA of 3.0 or B. The General Test of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) is required. If the applicant did not receive an undergraduate education in the United States, the Test of English as a Foreign Language, including the Test of Written English (TWE), is required. A four-year undergraduate is required of all applicants, including international students. Applications are accepted for fall semesters only. The final deadline for all applications is January 4. The final deadline for SERP and BER is May 1; however, admissions decisions for SERP annd BER are made on a rolling basis starting in January, so it is best to apply early. For applications, students should call 212-998-8050 or send e-mail to gsas.admissions@nyu.edu. Applications are accepted for fall semesters only. Part-time students with flexible schedules are accepted. Some but not all classes are available at night.
Who to Contact
Department of Journalism
New York University
Arthur Carter Hall
10 Washington Place
New York, New York 10003
The Faculty
• Richard Blood (M.S., Columbia, 1958) had a twenty-eight year newspaper career, including twelve years as a night city editor and later day city editor at the New York News. He was an associate professor for nine years and taught for four years at Seton Hall University.
• Robert Boynton (M.A., Yale, 1988), Director of the Magazine Journalism Program, has served as senior editor at Harper's and as contributing editor at the New Yorker. His work has appeared in many magazines and newspapers, including the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, and the LA Times Book Review. He is writing a book about American literary journalism.
• William Burrows (M.A., Columbia, 1962) is director of the Science and Environmental Reporting Program. A former reporter for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, he is the author of five books, including ®MD+UL¯This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age. His articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harvard Magazine, and Harper's. His specialties are space and national security issues.
• David Dent (M.A., Columbia, 1982) is a writer and former television reporter. He has worked as a reporter at WKRN-TV in Nashville and WGHP-TV in Greensboro, North Carolina. He has published articles in Essence, the New York Times Magazine, and Black Enterprise. His book, In Search of Black America, was published in 2000.
• Mark Dery (B.A., Occidental, 1982) is a freelance cultural critic and commentator on digital culture. He is the author of two books, Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century and The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink, and is the editor of Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture. He is the former managing editor of Mediachannel.org, a media news/criticism/activism portal.
• Pete Hamill is Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. A columnist for many years, he has served as editor in chief of both the New York Post and the New York Daily News and is the author of sixteen books, including News is a Verb: Journalism at the End of the Twentieth Century (1998). His memoir, A Drinking Life (1995) spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. His nine novels include Snow in August (1997) and Forever (2002), both New York Times bestsellers.
• Brooke Kroeger (M.S., Columbia, 1972) is the author of Fannie: The Talent for Success of Writer Fannie Hurst and Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. She was the bureau chief in Tel Aviv for UPI from 1981-83. She was the U.N. correspondent for Newsday and later a deputy metropolitan editor of New York Newsday. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Mirabella, New York Woman, New Woman, and Newsday, among others.
• Susie Linfield (M.A., NYU, 1981) served as the arts editor of the Washington Post, the deputy editor of the Village Voice, and as editor in chief of American Film. She has written about dance, art, film, and other topics for the New York Times, The Nation, the New Yorker, and other publications. She is currently a daily book critic for the Los Angeles Times and a contributing writer to the Los Angeles Times Book Review.
• Michael Ludlum (B.A., Hobart, 1959) is Director of Undergraduate Studies. He has worked in radio and television at CBS for more than twenty years in a variety of capacities, including reporter, executive producer, and news director. He spent two years as head writer of ABC-TV's Good Morning America and was president of the Empire State Network.
• Robert Karl Manoff (M.C.P., MIT, 1973) is a director of the Center for War, Peace, and the News Media. He has held senior editorial positions at Harper's and the Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications, and has written extensively on the media and ethnic, racial, and religious conflict; the media and international security; and media and conflict resolution. He is the coeditor of Reading the News.
• Pamela Newkirk (B.A., NYU, 1983) has worked as a reporter for New York Newsday, where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team for articles about a 1991 New York subway crash that left dozens killed and injured. She also served as a Washington correspondent for Gannett News Service and USA Today. Her book, Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media, was published in 2000.
• Michael Norman (B.A., Rutgers, 1972) is the author of These Good Men, a memoir published to critical acclaim in 1990. He is a former reporter and columnist for the New York Times and writes regularly for various national publications, including the New York Times Magazine and The Washington Post Magazine. His work is syndicated across the country and abroad. He is writing a book on the beginnings of World War II in the Pacific.
• Adam Penenberg (M.A., Reed, 1986) is an investigative journalist who has written for the New York Times, Forbes, and Wired. He is the author of Shattered Glass (1998), Spooked: Espionage in Corporate America (2000), and Tragic Indifference: One Man's Battle with the Auto Industry Over the Dangers of SUVs (2003).
• Mary Quigley (M.A., NYU, 1979) is the Director of Adjunct and Alumni Relations and Outreach. She worked as a special correspondent for Newsday for thirteen years, writing news and feature stories on local politics and education. She now writes for a number of national magazines, including Forbes, Good Housekeeping, and Women's Day, specializing in children's and educational issues. She is writing a book on women's issues relating to work and family.
• Marcia Rock (Ph.D., NYU, 1981) is the director of the Broadcast Journalism Concentration and an Emmy award-winning documentary producer. Her work includes documentaries on China, Israel, New York City, Northern Ireland, and women's issues. She has won two Emmys as well as other national awards. She is writing a book on how women balance marriage, family, and career and is coauthor of Waiting for Prime Time: The Women of Television News. Her most recent documentary, Dancing With My Father, debuted at film festivals in 2002.
• Jay Rosen (Ph.D., NYU, 1981) writes widely on journalism, democracy, and public life and is media editor of Tikkun magazine. His book, What Are Journalists For?, was published in 1999.
• William Serrin (B.A., Central Michigan, 1961) is a former labor and workplace correspondent for the New York Times. He is the author of Homestead and The Company and the Union: The Civilized Relationship of the General Motors Corporation and The United States Steel Workers. He was a member of a team of Detroit Free Press reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 1967 Detroit riots. He is currently writing a history of the labor movement.
• Stephen Solomon (J.D., Georgetown, 1975) is the director of the program in business and economic reporting. He was a writer and editor for Fortune and Inc. magazines and editor in chief of Family Business magazine. He is coauthor of Building 6: The Tragedy at Bridesburg and a recipient of both a Gerald Loeb Award and a John Hancock Award for distinguished business writing. He writes regularly for the New York Times Magazine and other national publications. He is writing a book on First Amendment issues.
• Mitchell Stephens (M.J., UCLA, 1973) has written criticism for publications including the Columbia Journalism Review and the Washington Journalism Review. He is the author of A History of News, Broadcast News, and The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word. He recently edited Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11, an oral history of the events of 9/11.
• Carol Sternhell (Ph.D., Stanford, 1981) is Associate Chair of the Department of Journalism. She is a former editor of the Harvard Crimson, a former editor at Newsday, and a freelance magazine writer and literary critic. Her work has appeared in many publications, including The Nation, the New York Times Book Review, the Village Voice, Ms., and the Women's Review of Books.
• Jane Stone (B.A., SUNY at Binghamton, 1981) is a freelance television producer. She has worked as a producer for 60 Minutes, West 57th, and the CBS Evening News. She has won five Emmys for her work. Her articles have been published in The American Journalism Review, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Nation.
• Ellen Willis (B.A., Barnard, 1962) is director of the cultural reporting and criticism concentration. She is a former senior editor and columnist for the Village Voice and former pop music critic for the New Yorker, and she has written for publications including Rolling Stone, The Nation, and the New York Times Book Review. She is the author of two books: Beginning To See the Light and No More Nice Girls. A third book of cultural and political essays, Don't Think-Smile! was published in the fall of 1999.