Learn how to report news stories with words, photos, graphics, audio, video and social media
Multimedia Journalism will introduce students to news reporting, interviewing and storytelling skills for print, broadcast and digital news outlets. Students will learn how to interview people, uncover news, separate fact from fiction, and engage a digital audience in a rapidly changing online environment. Veteran journalists who are experts in the fields of reporting, writing, audio, visuals, and audience engagement will lead students in training workshops to help them develop effective writing, research, and photography skills, and expose them to best practices for data visualizations and social media. Students also will visit a television news station to get a behind-the-scenes look into a daily newscast and meet UConn Journalism alumni working in the field. It will be an exciting introduction to nonfiction storytelling and the chance to learn techniques useful not only in the journalism field, but are must-haves in public relations, marketing and communications.
Students from diverse economic and racial backgrounds will learn about current events, the role of the news media, news judgement and journalism ethics. They will be introduced to nonfiction storytelling and give tools to sharpen their writing, research, and critical-thinking skills. Effective writing is the foundation of communication, and this course will help students communicate more effectively and clearly in their written work in the classroom and/or workplace. Journalism skills are necessary not only for reporters and editors but for those seeking to go into communications, public relations and marketing fields. Students will also gain experience using multimedia tools to gather and report news for publication on various platforms.
SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITY: Through a generous donation from supporters of the non-profit Connecticut Health Investigative Team, the UConn Department of Journalism and UConn PCS will provide eligible students with a full scholarship which will enable students to participate in the Multimedia Journalism course at no cost. Please visit the Scholarships & External Funding page for details on eligibility and more.
Sessions Offered
Storrs Session 1:
June 21, 2026 – June 27, 2026
Course Fees
Format
Non-Credit
Related Courses
This class is meant to be immersive and students will experience:
- What is news and how you can find it.
- How a reporter can best present a nonfiction story.
- Multimedia:
- Photography: Tools and tricks for creating a well-composed photo
- Audio and Video: Best practices & editing techniques
- Data Visualization: How to turn numbers into an understandable graphic
- Social media
- Field trip to a television news station in the Hartford area
- Ethics in a “citizen journalist” world
Meet the Professor
Kate Farrish
Assistant Professor in Residence, UConn Department of Journalism
Kate Farrish is an assistant professor-in-residence in the Journalism Department at the University of Connecticut, where she teaches newswriting, editing and journalism ethics.
In May 2025, she was inducted into the Connecticut Journalism Hall of Fame by the Connecticut professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in recognition of her 40 years as a journalist in Connecticut and her 16 years as journalism instructor.
She also spent 23 years at the Hartford Courant, where she was a town news reporter, higher education writer, Eastern Connecticut Bureau Chief, assistant city editor, education editor and the city editor. In 2000, she was named origination editor of the year at The Courant.
As both a reporter and editor, she won national awards from the Education Writers Association. As a contributing writer for the nonprofit Connecticut Health I-Team (C-HIT.org), she won a Publick Occurrences Award from the New England Newspaper & Press Association for a 2018 investigative story on Connecticut nurses and addiction. In that story, she detailed how in the depths of their addiction to opioids, one nurse robbed banks to get the money to buy heroin, others ripped fentanyl patches off their nursing home patients to use themselves and others stole laptops and jewelry in their patients’ homes to buy drugs.
From 2019 to 2025, Farrish was an assistant professor of journalism at Central Connecticut State University, and before that, she taught newswriting part-time at UConn for a decade. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism with honors from UConn in 1983 and earned a master’s degree in digital communications in 2018 from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She was selected by her fellow graduates to give an address at commencement.
An active volunteer in her town of Tolland, Farrish also serves as a board member and president of the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government (CFOG). She is a co-founder of the Connecticut Student Journalism Collaborative and serves as its board secretary.
In 2023, she was appointed by Gov. Ned Lamont to fill a vacancy on the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission, and in March 2024, the governor’s nomination of her to four-year term on the commission was approved by the State Senate.
