CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism opened its doors in September 2006 with 57 high academic achievers in its inaugural class and with a mandate from Chancellor Matthew Goldstein to quickly establish itself as one of the top graduate schools of journalism in the nation.

Students in the first two classes hailed from across the country and throughout the world, and many turned down offers from other top journalism schools to attend the new CUNY J-School. In keeping with the School’s mission to diversify newsrooms and provide opportunity to those who otherwise could not afford a masters program, the student body is among the most diverse of any graduate school of journalism in the nation.

In the intensive, three-semester, full-time program, students concentrate in a media track (print, broadcast or interactive), but all are exposed to storytelling in multiple media formats. Students also select a subject-matter concentration for their reporting (urban affairs, business/economics, arts/culture, or health/medicine). Core required courses cover reporting, writing, and editing; legal and ethical issues; research techniques; and fundamentals of interactive/online journalism.

An 8- to 10-week summer internship is required of all students; the initial summer proved to be a huge success, with students working for a broad range of media outlets, including:

ABC News, Bloomberg Television, BusinessWeek.com, the New York Daily News, ESPN The Magazine, NY1 News, The New York Times web video group, Reuters Television, and Washingtonpost-Newsweek Interactive.

All students did hands-on journalism work in the paid internships: research, reporting, writing, editing, producing and shooting, and they earned great reviews from their bosses. A grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation guaranteed that all students received at least $3,000 for the summer.

The NYCity News Service, a web-based service, distributes student work to news organizations across the City and beyond; all student stories, including audio and video works, are posted on the news service website (www.nycitynewsservice.com). Students also create content for a weekly 30-minute radio podcast, NYPulse.

Other distinguishing features of the program include a January enrichment academy and a partnership with CUNY TV, a 24/7 cable television outlet that reaches 2 million viewers, which will air the best student broadcast stories and offer internships.

Faculty at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and the news service editor are all practicing journalists with years of experience on national publications and broadcast outlets; three are Pulitzer Prize winners.

The School’s first students graduated in December 2007, many with jobs and paid internships at a variety of national news organizations already in hand.