New Multimedia Journalism Major Offered This Semester

August 26, 2010

Students learn how to operate the video control room in Lehman's new Multimedia Center.

As summer starts its transition into fall, Lehman students and faculty are beginning the 2010-11 academic year with some new academic offerings, including a new Multimedia Journalism (MMJ) major.

According to Professor Miguel Perez, the new chair of the Journalism, Communication, and Theatre Department, the program "is designed to prepare our students to meet the challenges faced by twenty-first century media professionals."

The timing of the new program not only fits with the changing media landscape but also is perfectly matched with the College's new state-of-the-art $16 million Multimedia Center.

All MMJ majors will take forty-two credits and specialize in one of three tracks: print, broadcast, or multilingual; all three tracks will focus on the multimedia elements required of today's journalists. The multilingual track incorporates what previously was a stand-alone major, multilingual journalism.

"Journalists have to know how to write stories, edit video,and be comfortable on- and behind-the-camera," says Professor Perez, a long-time journalist, columnist, and CNN contributor. "Now with our new Multimedia Center, Lehman students have all the tools of their trade at their disposal."

Students will get hands-on training writing and designing The Bronx Journal, an online newspaper that serves the entire borough, edited by new Professors Elaine Rivera and Chris McKenna and entirely created by Lehman students. Journalism majors will also write, edit, direct, and create The Bronx Journal television show, hosted by Professor Perez and his students, that airs throughout the borough on BronxNet, the municipal cable-access station located on the Lehman campus. The show also airs on YouTube.