Journalism and Mass Communications Department
- About the Department
- Curriculum
- Faculty and Staff
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Student Work
- Editing and Design for Journalism and Strategic Communication
- Investigative Reporting
- Radio News Hour
- Covering Courts and the Law
- Audio Production, Podcasting, and Recording Your Voice
- Podcasting
- Cross-Cultural Documentary Filmmaking
- Multimedia Storytelling Design
- Sports Journalism
- The Magazine: Past, Present, Future
- AIM Insider
- Internships
- Scholarships
- Assessment Plan
- Graduation and Retention Rates
The Department of Journalism and Mass Communications offers students two dynamic majors: Journalism and Strategic Communication. Both combine deep grounding in the liberal arts and sciences with solid experience in research, analysis and clear communication. Our graduates have an excellent reputation throughout the news industry, in public relations, and in a variety of other fields.
Mission Statement
As the nation’s only accredited journalism and mass communications program in a highly competitive liberal arts college, we remain committed to our first and highest mission: to educate, to broaden minds, and to inculcate habits of honor, careful analysis and reasoned discourse. We train students to produce excellent written and multi-platform work that can tell the nuanced stories of an increasingly diverse and pluralistic culture.
As a department with professional constituencies in journalism and strategic communication and an obligation to prepare citizens to participate in a democratic society, we seek to fulfill our mission by helping students develop abilities to think critically, to communicate clearly, to understand the ethical dimensions of the decisions they make, and to fully recognize the central role of news media in a free society.
Media historians recognize that the education of journalists at our institution dates back to 1869, when printer scholarships were established. Our professional responsibility has remained the same: educating students to perform the crucial function of informing communities.
Because the journalism and strategic communication professions rightfully expect our graduates to become competent practitioners, the department is committed to teaching students the skills and familiarizing them with the tools that are the standards of the industry. We remain committed to keeping abreast of those skills and tools as the information revolution continues. We are dedicated to helping students tell stories in text, through audio, via both moving and still images, and by using the ever-evolving tools of social media.
The department must fulfill these multiple responsibilities within its commitment to a liberal arts education and the curricular standards established by the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
Department Info
- P: 540-458-8432
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Department of Journalism and Mass Communications
Reid Hall
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204 West Washington St.
Lexington, Virginia 24450
Department News
The March 25 screening of the feature-length food documentary is free and open to the public.
The mayor of Mountain Brook, Alabama, reflected on the importance of the Speaking Tradition in creating community in a recent blog.
As part of the Mudd Center’s Leadership Lab, Goldberg and W&L’s Eric Deggans will discuss journalism, ethics and leadership in the modern age on March 17.
The host and producer of NPR’s Tiny Desk concerts will discuss how he maintains and grows one of the biggest online hits in NPR’s history.
The Knight Chair in Journalism and Media Ethics discussed his experience as an NPR TV critic in “Reading Media: How to Do Textual Analysis.â€
Phil Marella ’81 is the founder of Dana’s Angels Research Trust, an organization dedicated to funding research on Niemann-Pick disease type C.
Kaylee Hartung ’07 will cover two of the world’s premier sporting events during a single month.
The Knight Chair in Journalism and Media Ethics comments on the erasure of diverse perspectives in journalism.
The symposium on journalism ethics in the real world will take place Nov. 6-7.
The Reynolds Professor of Business Journalism offered insight on the influence of X, former known as Twitter, on the media industry.
The films will be screened Sept. 25-26 in the IQ Center, followed by an artist’s talk.
W&L’s Reynolds Journalism Internship Program places students in newsrooms across the country, where they become fully immersed in the life of a journalist for 12 weeks.
Updates
“In rural Iowa, a Muslim chef and his Catholic wife fuse their cultures in the kitchen and beyond, serving dishes t