Program Mission

As readers and writers we are concerned with stories–who tells them about whom, how they are told, how they arrive at an audience, and what happens to them when they become “public.” Journalism at LMU connects the educational values of the Jesuit and Marymount traditions to the rapidly changing future of global communication. Our program directly engages LMU’s mission of the promotion of justice by critiquing media representations and their immediate social and political impact, and also by exploring the history of community journalism. Journalism at LMU is not merely theoretical; we offer hands-on instruction in the reporting, writing, editing, and technological skills across multiple platforms that students need to become professional journalists.

The journalism program has as its pedagogical foundation the hands-on approach of project-based learning, which connects our students to communities and lives whose stories transmit issues of social, political, cultural, and moral import. It is also rigorously interdisciplinary, incorporating instruction in film, television, photography, and radio production; communication studies; digital media; social media; and modalities not yet known or articulated. Ethical discussions suffuse the entire curriculum, first in the traditional sense of a basic professional ethics and also in the larger frame of an ethics of representation; who is reporting about whom, and why and how. Telling people’s stories is our mission.

Learning Outcomes

• To acquire fluency in journalism’s fundamental reporting and writing skills
• To instill information and media literacy
• To practice and critique digital modes of journalism
• To employ an interdisciplinary lens to critique the journalist’s role in the media and the media’s role in society
• To produce journalistic narratives through project-based learning; e.g., Los Angeles as subject
• To understand the ethical guidelines and laws that govern journalism
• To understand the history of literary practices and the history of journalism as a unique field of writing
• The ability to analyze and create within one or more literary and journalistic modes or genres

For more information about the Journalism department, please contact Chair Kate Pickert, kpickert@lmu.edu

Major Requirements

Students can begin their Major their first year or declare it later. They learn the foundations of reporting and writing journalism in their first two years, and explore journalism as a literary practice through foundational English courses. In their third and fourth year students learn new technological tools for storytelling, explore the ethical and critical issues that affect journalism, and begin their specialization in modes of practice or content focus. They also begin to develop specific projects drawing on LA-based subjects, culminating in a long-form capstone project their senior year. The Major also requires hands-on experience via either an off-campus internship or work with campus media.

A student wishing to declare the Journalism major must be in good academic standing with a minimum GPA of C (2.0).

Journalism Model Four-Year Plan

The normal course load is 16 semester hours (4 classes). By following the model below, a student will complete all lower division core requirements by the end of the sophomore year as well as most major prerequisites. Note that core areas are suggested to provide a distribution of various disciplines every semester. Please be flexible implementing these suggestions, given your own interests and course availability. In four years, this plan meets all common graduation requirements.