Journalism | Undergraduate

The Howard University Journalism program trains students who are ethically and rigorously prepared for wide-ranging careers in digital and broadcast news.

Our Story
journalism student reporting on set with camera

Our students are multimedia journalists — reporters, editors, producers and content creators —who write, edit and produce thought-provoking enterprise stories of people and communities of color. The journalism program has been recognized as a top institution for journalists by USA Today, College Factual, U.S. News & World Report and National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). The student chapter of the NABJ at Howard was named Student Chapter of the Year in 2021.

Our curriculum offers tracks in Digital and Broadcast Journalism. The program won three National Academy of Arts & Sciences Student Production Awards, or Student Emmys, in 2023 for Best Newscast and Serious News Report. Our program has also received multiple awards in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program. Our student work is published on the Howard University News Service a 23-year-old digital news platform owned and operated by the Journalism program telling the story of media deserts in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and addressing a lack of diverse news coverage across D.C.'s eight wards and communities. 

Become a Journalism Student at Howard!

Chair: Ingrid Sturgis, M.A., associate professor

Journalism Sequence Coordinator: Stacey Patton, Ph.D., assistant professor

Yanick Rice Lamb, Ph.D., professor & editorial director, HU News Service

Nikole Hannah Jones, M.A., knight chair in race and journalism

Jennifer C. Thomas, M.A., associate professor & director, Annenberg Honors Program

Christine McWhorter, Ph.D., assistant professor

dominic k. mckenzie, M.A., ACB, assistant professor & director, HU Multicultural Media Academy

Ericka Blount, M.S., master instructor

Deron Snyder, M.S., lecturer

Click here for Faculty Profiles

News
Bison Election Zone

More than 80 journalism & film faculty and students covered the 2024 Election

Student interviews Trump supporters
(Photo: Davis Dailey)

The work is published on the Howard University News Service (HUNS). The website partners with more than 200 Black press outlets across the country through the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), republishing our coverage of national and local events in and around the Washington area, including Congress and the White House.

Read journal articles written by Dr. Rice Lamb, Prof. Sturgis & Prof. Thomas on HUNS's 2008 and 2014 coverage.

Visit the Howard University News Service

Election Day 2024 Television Broadcasts

Produced by the Journalism program, this five-hour long broadcast was simulcast on NewsOne, iWomanTV and on Howard University digital platforms.

Produced by the Fall 2024 Capstone Broadcast Journalism class and aired on WHUT TV, a PBS station.

Juan Benn Jr. reflects on his experience covering the 2024 Election from the Yard

Student Work
Students on set in the Howard TV Studio

Check out the award-winning Howard University News Service

Read Digital Stories Watch Broadcast Stories

Digital Journalism student is a Fellow at The Washington Post

Juan Benn Jr. (he/him) is a fellow at The Washington Post for the 2024 academic year. He is assigned to the Local desk and covers stories about people and events in the DMV. He is from Knoxville, Tennessee.

"[I am blessed to] work at such a prestigious newspaper before I even cross the stage. Everything I have worked for and have been taught over the years has prepared me for this moment," he said.

Benn is also the managing editor at The Hilltop, the oldest Black collegiate newspaper in the United States.

Read his stories at The Washington Post

Broadcast Journalism student reports from the Yard on Election Day

Trinity Webster-Bass (she/her), a senior Broadcast Journalism major, was reporting on the Yard for NewsVision, the Fall 2024 capstone newscast which aired on WHUT TV, a PBS station, on Election Day.

Read and watch her stories at HUNewsService.com

Digital Journalism student published by The Guardian

Asia Alexander (she/her), a senior Digital Journalism major, was published by The Guardian recently. Her story "Somber mood at Kamala Harris’s alma mater Howard University as hopes for victory dim" chronicled election night on the Yard. 

Alexander was an editorial intern at Forbes Magazine during the summer of 2024.

Read The Guardian story here

Broadcast Journalism student published by ESSENCE.com

Rachel Bunch (she/her), a senior Broadcast Journalism major, was published by ESSENCE.com recently. Her story, "Howard’s Heartbeat: The Yard Brings Together Alumni, Students And Supporters For Kamala Harris", highlighted the importance of the watch party for Vice President Harris being hosted at her alma mater.

Read ESSENCE.com story here

Broadcast Journalism student appears on CNN

Skyler Winston (she/her), a senior Broadcast Journalism major, was invited to appear on CNN recently as part of a panel discussing student impressions on the 2024 Election. From the Bay Area in California, she is the political editor at The Hilltop, the oldest Black collegiate paper in the United States.

Watch and read her stories at HUNewsService.com

Broadcast Journalism student named White House HBCU Scholar

Ashley Anderson (she/her), a junior Broadcast Journalism major, is a 2024 White House HBCU Scholar, as named by the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity through Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). 

Read more on The Dig

Howard students receive HBCU Science Journalism Fellowship

Our journalism students Mykal Bailey and Sabrina McCrear were selected by the HBCU Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT to participate in a new fellowship that provides students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities with training, mentorship, and early career support to do reporting on science, health, and environmental issues. 

Program Highlights

DNC Convention 2024

Journalism Professors Jennifer C Thomas and Dr. Christine McWhorter, and three student journalists – Skyler Winston, Trinity Kinslow and Trinity Webster-Bass covered the DNC Convention in Chicago over the summer. Their stories were picked up by Black newspapers around the country.

Read more
faculty and students at the DNC Convention in Chicago

New York City Media Tour

HU Faculty with CBS News anchors Gayle King, Nate Burleson and Vladimir Duthiers

More than 30 journalism students and four faculty returned to the Big Apple for the annual New York City Media Tour. The group spent two days visiting media outlets including Hearst, ABC News and Complex. The group also visited the campuses of Columbia University, the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and New York University. 

 

Photo: CBS News Anchors Gayle King, Nate Burleson and Vladimir Duthiers, HU Professors Dominic McKenzie and Ericka Blount with journalism students

Multicultural Media Academy

Students in the 2024 cohort pose for a photo after their graduation from the program

Open to high school students and recent high school graduates, the Multicultural Media Academy at Howard University was founded in 1975. Student journalists learn how to report and write news stories about health disparities in the District of Columbia. Professor Dominic McKenzie is director of the program. Check out their stories at voicesoftomorrow.news.

 

Photo: High School students in the 2024 cohort celebrate their graduation in June

 

Read more
Faculty on the Frontlines of Truth
professor Jennifer Thomas headshot with brick wall

Jennifer Thomas, M.A.

accepted an invitation to deliver the keynote address at the Department of State International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) on New and Traditional Broadcast Media. The address was titled 'It's Now or Never: The Fundamentals of a Free Press to a Democratic Society.'

Dominic McKenzie

dominic k. mckenzie, M.A., ACB

was invited to return as Judge in the Press Association of Jamaica awards, the premier honor given to Jamaica's best journalists. He will judge the Young Journalist of the Year category.

Portrait of Stacey Patton signing a book

Stacey Patton, Ph.D.

released a children's book 'Not My Cat', published by Simon and Schuster. The book chronicles a cat who follows a homeowner who is too busy to adopt an animal -- until the cat adopts her.

Dr. Christine McWhorter

Christine McWhorter, Ph.D.

published an article in the Journal of Media Literacy Education exploring how pop culture podcasts can support Critical Race Media Literacy among HBCU students. As a Critical Race Media Literacy educator, McWhorter’s study found podcasts helped students engage with CRML and question dominant narratives in a fresh, accessible way.

Prof. Ericka Blount

Ericka Blount, M.A.

was awarded the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund in Film and Media at Johns Hopkins University to continue the production of her episodic television project “fiftyTWO” in partnership with her sister, Elissa Blount Moorhead. This project has gone through Zaentz and with Sundance Episodic labs.

Professor Yanick Rice Lamb sits at desk with laptop

Yanick Rice Lamb, Ph.D.

was featured in the latest edition of Howard Magazine, in an article titled 'Widening the Pool of Truthtellers. Read the feature here.

History of the Journalism Program at Howard University

1971

The Cathy Hughes School of Communications traces its history back to 1971 when the SOC was founded with Tony Brown as dean.

1971 - 1974

WHUR-FM debuted in 1971 and three years later, one of MJFC's predecessors, the Department of Radio, Television and Film (RTVF), established student-run radio station WHBC

1982

The Community News newspaper began publishing, and the CHSOC relocated to the renovated C.B. Powell Building.

1985-1993

Under the leadership of Dean Orlando Taylor (1985 to 1993), the Walter Annenberg Foundation donated a $2 million endowment to begin the Annenberg Honors Program. The School also established the Howard Journal of Communications; "News Vision," a television news magazine produced by journalism students; and the student-run Howard University Film Organization.

1986

The Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) accredited the then existing Departments of Journalism and RTVF – enabling those departments to join the select few communications programs in America and abroad to be endorsed by this rigorous assessment/accreditation body

Mid-1990s

Four (4) school-based media outlets began: Glasshouseradio.com, the first all-talk, online radio channel produced for and by Howard students & faculty; District Chronicles, a weekly community newspaper; BlackCollegeView.com (now HUNewsService.com); and 101 Magazine (101Magazine.net).

1993 - 2011

Dr. Jannette L. Dates became School's third dean in 1993, serving until 2011. Under her leadership, the Departments of Journalism and RTVF received ACEJMC re-accreditation in 2003 and 2009. Time Warner, Inc. invested $2 million to establish RTVF’s Time Warner Endowed Chair; media titans Bill Duke, Suzanne DePasse and Cathy Hughes served in this capacity.

2013 - 2017

Dr. Gracie Lawson-Borders became the CHSOC's fourth dean. The new Department of Media, Journalism and Film (combining parts of the former Departments of Journalism and RTVF) welcomed its first students in the class of 2017.

2019

Journalism Professor Ingrid Sturgis becomes chair of the Department of Media, Journalism and Film

2020

In September 2020, Howard University and Craig Newmark announced that Craig Newmark Philanthropies made a $2.5 million gift to support aspiring journalism students. The Craig Newmark Journalism Endowed Opportunity Scholarship Program ($1.5 million) supports journalism majors with demonstrated financial need (with priority given to juniors and seniors) and The Craig Newmark Journalism Endowed Student Experience Fund enables professional development opportunities that are vital to students to get jobs after college and to advance in their careers.

Journalism (Digital and Broadcast) | Undergraduate

Contacts

Stacey Patton, Ph.D. (Primary Contact)

Sequence Coordinator
Assistant Professor
Email

Ingrid Sturgis

MJF
Department Chair
(202) 806-7357
Email

Program Details

  • Degree Classification: Undergraduate
  • Program Type: Major

Statistics

Howard University — The Home of Excellence in Journalism