Today’s world faces many challenges on many fronts, presenting some of the most important stories for journalists to not only cover, but cover well.

Everything from mass migrations across often hostile borders to humanitarian disasters, rising authoritarianism, gross human rights violations, nationalism, sectarianism, inter-state conflict and war affects billions of people. To make sense of the events and forces shaping their lives, people around the world turn to journalists for answers.

These stories are inherently complex and dynamic, and require much of the journalists reporting them. Our International Reporting Program prepares students to produce meaningful and accurate journalism about the state of the world.

We give students a framework applicable to any overseas beat as well as to domestic beats covering communities and places in the U.S. that may be as “foreign” to some Americans as countries oceans away — from minority communities that have in many cases been established for generations to communities definable by other attributes.

Reporting courses require students to produce two reported features, offering opportunities to hone their craft. The classes also cover U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II; American exceptionalism and its influence on how journalists see the world; building substantive knowledge about a beat; avoiding stereotypes and tropes; identifying and countering disinformation; working with local journalists and translators; and recognizing the impact of trauma on international reporting. The required non-reporting class is an international relations course designed for journalists.

Most of our students do their summer internship abroad. Before they go, they undertake a two-day risk awareness and emergency medical training workshop.

Alums of the program work around the world and in the U.S., for such media outlets as The New York Times, the BBC, NPR, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, AP, Reuters, Vice, BuzzFeed, Fusion, The New Republic, CBS, ABC, and NBC.