Investigative Journalism MA

The City’s pioneering MA in Investigative Journalism is an intense and challenging degree designed to equip students with the essential reporting and research skills needed to produce investigations that change lives and society.

Who is it for?

This course is suitable for students with any good degree who want to specialise in the area of investigative journalism. You will have a keen interest in digging deeper into topics beyond the daily headlines and a hunger to expose injustices and abuses of power using an evidence-based methodology.

Objectives:

On this course you will learn how to investigate, how to communicate across a range of platforms - digital, audio-visual and text, and how to work ethically and legally. You will quickly progress from learning the basics of writing, whether a text-based news report or for broadcast, to producing radio and TV, and laying out text.

You will learn how to investigate using open and closed sources, and will be taught a variety of skills such as interviewing techniques, how to use access to information laws, and the basics of ethical undercover work. At the end of the year, you will be expected to produce a piece of investigative work of your own, of professional quality.

The course is taught by experienced professionals. Teaching is led by course director Dr Richard Danbury, who spent about a decade at the BBC and won awards for his work there, and Jenna Corderoy, whose work has been long-listed for the Paul Foot Prize and is an alumna of the course. They will be joined by a wide range of skilled and experienced professional investigative reporters and editors.

Career prospects:

This course aims to prepare you for a first job in any form of journalism, including newspapers, magazines, online and the broadcast media. Investigative Journalism graduates will be especially valued in jobs which require rigorous, in-depth and advanced research and investigative skills.