Beginning in fall 2025, the undergraduate journalism and sports journalism masters program will have new requirements geared toward visual journalism.  

As the industry now sees a big focus on visuals and social media, the program’s changes aim to provide students with a larger skill set. 

“We’re sort of reimagining the journalism curriculum to fit what the industry is looking for these days,” Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Journalism Ben Bogardus said. 

Outside of writing and broadcasting, many journalists are utilizing social media and visual journalism in the industry.  

“People are creating content,” Bogardus said. “They’re doing their own stories online and podcasts, social media, things like that. So we really want to teach students the skills that they’re going to be asked to use when they get into the professional world.” 

The courses under the new curriculum will not affect students currently enrolled in the programs. 

BA IN JOURNALISM

In reworking the undergraduate journalism program, the courses will go beyond traditional writing or broadcasting. 

“It’s designed to reorient the program to focus on modern storytelling techniques, including photography, short form videography, data visualization, social media reporting, podcasting, narrative storytelling, AI/AR/VR use in reporting, etc.,” according to the description of program changes document.

The journalism department recognized that consuming media has seen a large shift, as many people now get their news from social media platforms. 

“In fact, a 2024 Pew study found that 54% of Americans ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ get their news from social media, and a 2023 e-marketer survey found that people spend an average of 4.25 hours a day on devices, compared to only 2.75 hours watching television,” according to the aforementioned document.

The department made six overall changes to the program, beginning with reducing the credits needed to graduate from 124 to 120. 

One of the previously required courses, Fundamentals of Digital Journalism, will no longer be a requirement. Three courses are newly required as well: Photojournalism, Social Media Reporting and Data Visualization for Journalism, which is a new course. 

The department also reduced the amount of required electives from four to three, and the credits of the capstone course from four  to three. The program’s set of learning outcomes, which were more than a decade old, is revised as well in order to align with the new curriculum. 

“I’m really looking forward to seeing what the students do in these classes, because as I mentioned earlier, they’re really about content creation,” Bogardus said. “They’re about unleashing the creativity of the students and not being sort of beholden to what a traditional TV reporter or an online web reporter can do.”

MS IN SPORTS JOURNALISM

Similarly, the M.S. in Sports Journalism has nine modifications, starting with changing the name to “MS in Sports Journalism and Media.” This change was made to “better reflect the types of classes offered. . . which involve both journalism and creating media content, and to better reflect the jobs graduates get after graduation,” according to the description of the program changes document.

The changes to this program follow the same goal of keeping up with the industry expanding to  social media and visual journalism. 

“It’s sort of the same idea that we’re looking at where the industry is going and where the jobs are, and it’s really more in the social visual space,” Bogardus said. “We’re adjusting the curriculum to match that, to hopefully give our students a leg up on the competition when they get out into the job market.” 

In an effort “to make the program more accessible to external applicants and more efficient in scheduling and delivery,” the department reduced the number of credits from 36 to 33, according to the aforementioned document. 

Most of the courses under the program will be renamed in order to better represent what is being taught and the program’s learning outcomes will be revised. 

Students will have a new required course, Sports Social Media, as well as two new elective options, Photography for Sports Communications and Advanced Podcasting. They will also choose between Sportscast Producing or Digital Sports Newsroom. Students may also choose to take both courses, with one as a required course and the other being an elective.

Additionally, the current required Crafting the Sports Feature course and Producing and Presenting TV Sport Remote will be electives.