I would like to know what type of journalism classes are there?

There is something I feel compelled to say that might not be construed as exactly what the request says. This is based on heartfelt statement of folks I've known who are journalists. Journalists -- specifically bad journalists, which, they say, is most of them -- are ignorant. Is this an evil thing to say? No. It's just that if you spend your educational years learning to write about stuff, you may often spend very little time actually learning what all that "stuff" means. Remember Martin Gardner? Writer who got to be an absolute font of information about mathematics and general science-y stuff. It was not necessary for him to do. But he did it anyway. And he was brilliant. The unfortunate thing about many journalists that by talking about stuff that other people do, they often tend to fool themselves into thinking that they are also an expert on what the people they are reporting on know.

Before I bore you to tears with my presumptuousness, let me get to the point. If you want to be a great journalist, try to learn lots about what you want to report on. Many people will simply swoon over the opinions voiced by people on television or radio or in print. Many others will actually pay attention and evaluate the information they're fed very logically. These people that do that are the ones that have an effect on what gets done.

My point is that if you are going to make a career out of distributing information to the population, you owe it to yourself and to the population to be able to evaluate the value of that information yourself. So take classes in stuff other than journalism. This will make your journalism valuable to the public you are supposed to be serving. And you'll be proud. As will we.

Hi, Maya!

How are you? Thanks for reaching out. In order to become a capable journalist (not just an amateur blogger on your mother’s basement couch), there are many different types of classes you need - writing, ethics, legal (so you know, for example, that you can photograph a business that doesn’t want you from across the street, etc), technology (how to use the equipment ), etc.

Here is a list of the requirements from my alma mater, Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.

http://coursecatalog.syr.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=15&poid=7786

The previous responder was, in his own words, “presumptuous.” There is, however, a little truth to what he says in his otherwise contempt for us media folks. You do need to know far more than just how to write. Amateur bloggers & writers clearly have not had the training to polish the senses of ethics, writing, sourcing, etc.

Hope that helps! Best of luck joining the “real news” media.

Barry Abrams

ESPN