This highly practical module will allow students to explore in depth and actively engage with the world of business journalism. This course will encourage students to develop their researching, writing and reporting skills to allow them to write professional news, interviews and features for the specialist and national press.
Students will learn how to read balance sheets to take the financial health of companies and institutions. They will learn how to use databases and statistics, to find stories about the health of the economy, and assess the role of big business in the economic and political spheres.
Students will come to understand important economic and financial terms and trends (for example GDP, balance of payments, stockmarket indices, house price indices, retail price indices) and use these to put business stories in context.
Students will use their new found skills in analysing data to dig behind the statistics and find real stories about corporate activity or wrong-doing, and analyse the use and misuse of private and public funds.
Students will demonstrate their skills in a second semester original, independent business journalism project.
At the heart of the course, students will engage with on-going ethical debates about relationships between business and financial journalists and their sources, and the boundaries such journalists need to observe under the Press Complaints Commission and other professional codes of practice.
On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:
The module will be delivered through a mixture of lectures and seminars/workshops. The lecturer will deliver the background information necessary to inform classroom discussion of related issues and students' practical work. Both lectures and workshops will involve practical work in-class writing practice, interviews and analysis of company results and economic data.
Background reading will be an essential part of progressing through the module along with appreciation of current business, economic and political news events.
Workshops will be used to facilitate research and writing – both in the form of simulated exercises set by the tutor and self-directed work on real-life articles to be submitted as part of students' assessed portfolios and work-in-progress for their extended individual projects.
Definitive UNISTATS Category | Indicative Description | Hours |
---|---|---|
Scheduled learning and teaching | One-hour lecture and one-hour seminar/workshop | 22 |
Guided independent study | 278 | |
Total (number of credits x 10) | 300 |
The assessment for this module is designed to test the ability of students to distinguish between different types of business journalism, and to put into practice what they have learned in the form of a varied portfolio of business articles and an extended individual project. It is also intended to test students' awareness of major stories, issues and debates in the business and finance worlds. It will also test students' ability to generate a body of work demonstrating proficiency and imagination in the use of mediums beside print/writing (e.g. video, audio, web design).
Learning Outcome | Assessment Strategy |
---|---|
1) Write clear, accurate business stories for specialist titles, business-to-business magazines and national newspapers | Formative assessment through in-class writing practice, summative assessment through news writing test and individual extended project |
2) Select the significant information in balance sheets, statistical tables and reports to formulate pertinent and penetrating questions and produce hard-hitting investigative pieces | Formative assessment through in-class writing practice, summative assessment through news writing test and individual extended project |
3) Explain important economic and financial trends and developments clearly, accurately and at appropriate levels for a range of general and specialist readerships | Formative assessment through in-class writing practice, summative assessment through news writing test and individual extended project |
4) Analyse trends within business news and demonstrate an ability to put news into a historical, political and economic context | Formative assessment through in-class writing practice, summative assessment through news writing test and individual extended project |
5) Work within the Press Complaints Commission's code of practice on dealing with contacts and investing in companies/shares in which the journalist has a personal interest | Formative assessment through in-class writing practice, summative assessment through news writing test and individual extended project |
6) Demonstrate an ability to work independently and at length on an extended individual project involving significant primary research and the use of a variety of different processes and/or mediums | Formative assessment through work-in-progress for individual extended project and summative assessment of completed project |
Description of Assessment | Definitive UNISTATS Categories | Percentage |
---|---|---|
Coursework | Portfolio | 50 |
Coursework | Extended individual project | 50 |
Total (to equal 100%) | 100% |
It IS NOT a requirement that any major assessment category is passed separately in order to achieve an overall pass for the module.
Brett, Michael (2003) How to Read the Financial Pages Random House Business Books: London
Coggan, Philip (2002) The Money Machine – How the City Works Penguin:London
Lewis, Michael (2011) Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour Allen Lane
Peston, Robert (2008) Who Runs Britain? and who's to blame for the Economic mess we're in. Hodder Paperbacks: London
Tett, Gillian (2009) Fool's Gold Little, Brown: London
Augar Philip (2009) Chasing Alpha Bodley Head: Oxford
Biggs, Barton (2006) Hedgehogging John Wiley: New Jersey
Bruck, Connie (1989) The Predators' Ball – The inside story of Drexel Burnham and the rise of the junk bond raiders Penguin: London
Burroughs, Bryan and Helyar, John (2004) Barbarians At The Gate Random House Business Books: London
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Lowenstein, Roger (2002) When Genius Failed – The rise and fall of Long-Term Capital Management Fourth Estate: London
McLean, Bethany and Elkind, Peter (2004) The Smartest Guys in the Room – the amazing rise and scandalous fall of Enron Penguin: London
Harford, Tim (2006) The Undercover Economist Little, Brown: London
Shiller, Robert L (2000) Irrational ExuberancePrincetonUniversity Press: New Jersey
Smith, Terry (1996) Accounting for Growth Random House Business Books: London