The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York is a public graduate school of journalism in New York City. It is one of 25 institutions that comprise the City University of New York (CUNY). The Newmark Graduate School opened in 2006 and is the only public graduate school of journalism in the northeastern United States.
Graciela Mochkofsky is the third Dean of the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. She succeeded Sarah Bartlett, who served as Dean from January 2014 to June 2022. The graduate school grants two Master degrees, a Master of Arts in Journalism and a bilingual (Spanish-English) journalism Master of Arts. The graduate school also created the first Master of Arts in Engagement Journalism in the United States. Students in the Engagement program study with faculty from publications including The New York Times, Business Week, The Economist, The Nation, PBS, and others.
The Bilingual Journalism Program, started in 2016, is designed for students planning to cover Latino communities in the US. Students undertake assignments in Spanish and English. Five Spanish language courses are offered on the core Latino community reporting and writing, advanced research, investigative journalism, and reporting on identity issues.
Newmark Journalism School graduates have won Pulitzer Prizes, George Polk awards, and Peabody awards, among other honors, creating content as student reporters, visual journalists, and interactive news producers. Reporting by Newmark students appears on NYCity News Service and local, national, and international news outlets.
MA in Journalism: The MA Journalism degree study course is hands-on. The program works makes studies available to those with work and family obligations. A paid summer internship is available for all students.
The curriculum is built upon seven common courses. Students complete 43 credits in as few as 16 months, or they can extend their studies to accommodate work and family obligations. They can take free January Academy enrichment workshops between the fall and spring semesters.
Core courses stress foundational skills that all journalists require, including reporting, writing, editing skills, and analytic thinking. Other core courses cover journalistic ethics and legal issues, broadcast fundamentals, and fundamentals of interactive media (such as data journalism, multimedia presentation, website design, and audience engagement strategies). Students studying for the M.A. in Journalism may concentrate in one media format—print, video, broadcast TV, documentary, photo, audio, or data. Or, they may choose courses across formats, depending on interests and career goals.
Bilingual Journalism: The subject concentration director is Carmen Graciela Diaz, a journalist, author, and teacher. Besides Spanish-language classes, students follow the standard M.A. curriculum. Their paid summer internship will be at a Latino-focused Spanish or English-language news outlet in the U.S. or abroad.
Students have been hired for positions in such leading media outlets as The New York Times, Telemundo, Univision, NY1 Noticias, The City, The Philadelphia Inquirer, NPR, NBCNews, ABC, LatinFinance, The Marshall Project, HBO-Axios, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo de Puerto Rico, Bloomberg, and Nieman Lab, among others.
M.A. in Engagement Journalism: Engagement journalism is about finding novel ways to serve communities, especially those often left out of mainstream reporting. Students prioritize unmet needs and facilitate community participation in the reporting process. As with traditional journalism graduate programs, students learn reporting, writing, research, and multimedia skills.
Program Director Carrie Brown describes engagement journalism as focusing on matters including crowdsourcing for investigative reporting projects, conducting information needs assessments, using social media to expand audiences, developing community listening strategies, and finding creative ways to disseminate information beyond regular storytelling. Students choose a community to serve throughout the program, broadly defined and not limited by geography.
Specialties: The Newmark Graduate School is designed to teach proficiency in a wide variety of media studies for those interested in documentary filmmaking, investigative reporting, podcasting, or long-form magazine writing. Well-known journalism specialists work closely with students on their chosen projects.
Subject Concentrations: In their second semester, students begin studying a specialty that they select at the end of the first semester from six options. Students take two or three courses in a subject concentration that build upon one another. They also have the flexibility to take a course that interests them in another concentration, or select from various electives.