Students explore the role of a journalist in society. They enhance their knowledge of Canadian history and politics, world events and economics to better understand and report on current issues that include Indigenous peoples, gender bias, environmental, diversity and health concerns. Students analyze the importance of context in journalism. Current events are discussed and explored with a view to understanding how they should be covered with a critically minded and fully informed approach.

Students develop reporting skills with a focus on the courts, Indigenous issues and equality. They examine key legal and ethical issues facing Canadian journalists. The focus is practical and explains what a journalist needs to know to avoid legal problems (e.g. defamation). Students are taught what strategies should be adopted in dealing with ethical dilemmas associated with traditional and social media. They will also further refine their research and interviewing skills.

Students advance their skills in radio news and podcasting. They examine how to effectively use their voices to engage their audience. Students conduct interviews and gather natural sound on-location to create original content. They practice advanced writing and audio editing techniques and explore how background sound, sound-ups and interview clips can make stories more compelling. Students use these skills in their live newscasts on S@Y Radio and apply peer critiquing techniques to develop themselves and others. Students will learn to identify what makes for good audio story subjects and sources, and how to pitch their ideas to an outlet.

In this course students work together in an integrated news environment, preparing stories for multiple platforms. They line up, research and produce TV and radio newscasts and provide digital content (online and social media). By rotating through the different roles and responsibilities, students develop the teamwork and leadership skills needed in an integrated newsroom. They produce and present original content and further develop their on-camera and editorial skills. Various critiquing techniques are used to improve self and others.

Students advance their skills in storytelling for all platforms, including social media, the web, radio and television. They utilize focused storytelling techniques, building on the skills they have acquired in previous semesters and learning how to dig deeper and tell more developed stories for all mediums.

Students develop their storytelling skills with the production of documentary, feature and long-form content. They are taught how to work in a documentary unit. Focusing on one special topic, they collaborate on television and podcasts/radio documentaries that are posted on a fully developed multimedia website. Students use research, data visualization and digital research packs from JRN370 to fully investigate and present the issue.

Students learn techniques and ethical practices for online research. They explore a variety of resources available to journalists, such as FOI, Freedom of Information, requests. This course is taught in conjunction with JRN314 - Long Form and Feature Reporting.

All journalists investigate. Phone calls, in-person interviews, and digital research are the everyday stuff of storytelling. But as British media theorist Hugo de Burgh put it "It is often said that journalism is the first rough draft of history; by contrast, investigative journalism provides the first rough draft of legislation." This course examines the tools used by a watchdog press as it attempts to hold institutions, business, government and the powerful accountable, mainly for crime, fraud, exploitation, discrimination and other abuses.

Students will build on news gathering techniques to conduct in-depth investigations into issues of social relevance. Advanced journalistic tools to locate, analyze/interview and incorporate difficult-to-find facts and people are studied. Fact-checking, legal and ethical verification, and multimedia story structuring for investigative journalism are explored.

This intensive, 7-week course is a multifaceted opportunity to hone on-camera performance and interviewing skills. Students will examine the key areas of stress in their performance, from the psychological to script quality and connection to content and audience. After auditions, students will design a bespoke program for addressing individual performance challenges. Many aspects of the process - voice, delivery, physicality, story selection, script personalization, working with interactive on-air content, interviewing, handling guests and specialized reporting - will be addressed.

In this course students develop advanced skills in a sports and entertainment format. They work together to produce timely content for TV and social media by rotating through various roles. Emphasis is placed on performance, original writing and content production. Students learn how to write and perform advanced highlight packs, voice overs with direct joins to sound-ups and round-table discussions with anchor / reporter debriefs. They learn advanced adlibbing and entry level play-by-play skills. This is a portfolio development course.

Verbal communication comes with a personal responsibility. Essentially, effective communicators have the responsibility of making messages clear and understandable, so they can build and maintain relationships with customers and colleagues. This course introduces the primary aspects of successful verbal communication in a business context. Students develop and implement an action plan for continuously improving their own verbal skills, gaining practical knowledge about business communications that can be applied in real-world scenarios.

Improv is a non-traditional way for business professionals to refine their interpersonal skills. The ability to communicate effectively, think on your feet and work well with a team can determine success in business. This course focuses on the skills needed to be highly effective in organizations through confidence building improvisational techniques. It is designed to encourage risk taking and to accept failures by building on the ideas of others in a collaborative creative problem solving effort. Participants learn how to better handle stressful situations, overcome shyness, handle awkward moments and communicate more powerfully.