Financial Journalism  MA

Overview

The MA in Financial Journalism is designed to produce the next generation of outstanding financial journalists who will excel at covering the current crisis - and spot the next one.

Financial and business news is now continually on the front page, and opportunities in the field of financial and business journalism are expanding rapidly.

The course benefits from close collaboration with the Financial Times newspaper, with all students guaranteed placements at the FT Group in December/January. You will study alongside FT journalists who have been seconded by the newspaper to take the course on a part-time basis.

You will be taught by an outstanding faculty, all of whom have years of practical experience as financial journalists, working for such organisations as the BBC, Reuters and Sky News. You will also have lectures by experts from Cass Business School.

Students on the course enjoy excellent job prospects, with three quarters of the 2010/11 graduates obtaining paid jobs as financial journalists within three months of graduation, and the other three interning.

The BBC and the FT on the Financial Journalism MA at City

The Financial Journalism MA at City University London includes placements at the Financial Times and usually also involves some placements at the BBC. Here, Jeremy Hillman (Head of the BBC's business coverage 2008-2011) and the FT's Hal Austin talk about why they chose to work with City.


Course Fees:

  • Full-time EU: £9,500
  • Part-time EU: £5,500
  • Full-time Non EU: £19,000 (2011 fee. Fees for 2012 published here soon.)

Start Date:

24 September 2012

How to Apply

Entry Requirements

The course is suitable for UK/EU graduates or non-EU graduates with good English skills. It is also suitable for existing journalists who want to specialise in financial journalism, and for individuals with a background in the financial sector who want to work as journalists.

There is a separate entry process for existing journalists who wish to enroll as part-time students who will need to be seconded by their organisation.

Entry requirements

  • You should be able to show that you have a commitment to journalism through relevant work experience, which might include work on a university/college publication, or work experience, ideally in a publication dealing with business, economics or finance.
  • You should have at least a good second-class degree in any subject, ideally in social sciences, economics, or business. Considerations will also be given to mature applicants with substantial work experience in the financial sector and/or journalism.
  • You need to have good numeracy skills, which can be demonstrated by academic or practical experience, test scores such as GMAT or GRE, or a special test administered by City as part of the admissions process.
  • You should be able to demonstrate some knowledge and experience of finance and economics, which could be demonstrated either through academic qualifications or practical experience
  • We are looking for enthusiasm and interest - someone who wants to be a financial journalist and is prepared to work hard to achieve that goal.
  • Interviews will be required for all UK students (normally in a selection day in April) and where possible will also be carried out for overseas applicants.

Deadlines

  • The application deadline is 1 April for those who wish to be considered for Marjorie Deane scholarships.
  • The final deadline is 1 May. If the course if full by that date, students who are accepted on the course will be put on a waiting list.

English Requirements

For students whose first language is not English, we will provide support in this area but an IELTS score of at least 7.0 is required (including at least 7.0 in the written test).

Visa Requirements

The way that you apply may vary depending on the length of your course at City, there are different rules for:

  • Students on courses of more than 6 months
  • Students on courses of less than 6 months
  • Students on a pre-sessional English Language course

For more information see our main Visa page.

When and Where

Start Date:
24 September 2012
Duration:
Full-time (10 months). We advise our students that they need to be available for classes and assignments from Mondays to Fridays during working hours, and occasionally outside those times.

Course Content

The MA Financial Journalism aims to develop the practical skills and knowledge needed to work in a full multimedia environment, as well as the analytic understanding of the key concepts and issues in financial journalism.

By the end of the course, you will have had extensive training in the best professional practice of reporting business and financial news. You will have developed professional skills such as interviewing, researching and writing news stories and features.

You will also understand how to obtain and use key economic and financial data, using state-of-the art Bloomberg and Reuters terminals.

You will have a firm grounding in key concepts in finance and economics, and the ability to understand and manipulate financial data and critically analyse the context and assumptions within statements by key policy makers.

The course is taught in two distinct ways: the compulsory modules teach practical journalism skills and the more specialised financial journalism electives cover key topics. You are required to take the overview course on financial journalism but can choose two out of a number of electives which look in more detail at particular aspects of business and financial journalism.

Course Structure

Compulsory modules

Elective modules (take any 2)

Teaching and Assessment

The MA Financial Journalism is led by Professor Steve Schifferes, former BBC economics correspondent, and will include both practical training in multimedia journalism skills as well as a more analytic approach to contemporary issues.

The course is taught through a mixture of lectures, seminars, practical workshops, and group and individual assignments which allow hands-on practical experience. You will also carry out a major project of your own in the summer term, under supervision, on a topic of your choice, to publishable or broadcast standards.

There are four key group assessments covering online, print, broadcast radio and television production. This usually includes an online production day on the UK annual budget, producing a live special report, and radio and TV production weeks during which you will produce a live half-hour current affairs business programme.

Extra workshops

We offer a range of practical skills workshops for financial journalists - from numeracy training and ethics to using the Freedom of Information Act and forensic accounting, all taught by leading experts in their fields.

Class visits

Throughout the year of the course there are opportunities for you to visit and gain inside experience at a number of leading media organisations including: Reuters, Bloomberg, The Financial Times, the BBC and the Wall Street Journal, as well as key institutions such as the Bank of England and the Financial Services Agency.

Recommended Reading

Sample reading list for 'Key issues in financial journalism' module:

•    Andrew Ross Sorkin, Too Big to Fail
•    Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean, All the Devils Were Here
•    Anya Schiffrin, Bad News: How the Media Missed the Story of the Century
•    Rajan Rajanastan, Fault Lines
•    David Wessel, In Fed We Trust
•    Michael Lewis, The Big Short

Fees

  • Full-time EU: £9,500
  • Part-time EU: £5,500
  • Full-time Non EU: £19,000 (2011 fee. Fees for 2012 published here soon.)

Please note that, for part-time courses, the tuition fee is likely to increase by a small percentage in subsequent years.

Funding

For up-to-date information about tuition fees, living costs and financial support, visit Undergraduate Fees and Finance or Postgraduate Fees and Finance.

Bursaries

The Marjorie Deane Financial Journalism Foundation is funding studentships for applicants to the MA in Financial Journalism. In the past the Foundation has paid the full tuition costs for one in four students enrolling on the course. Please see their website for details of how to apply.

Other bursaries are also advertised and awarded by media organisations. Please visit the Department of Journalism's bursaries page for more details. 

Placements

City's Financial Journalism MA is unique in offering guaranteed placements at the Financial Times Group to the limited number of students admitted onto the course. Every student on the course will complete a one-month unpaid placement at The Financial Times Group during December or January, either at the newspaper, the magazine division, or the ft.com website. Six paid placements are also available at The Financial Times during July, based on performance during the earlier internship.

In the current year the BBC is also likely to offer a limited number of unpaid placements in the spring term, subject to public competition from other courses, which will place students in the Business and Economics Centre, rotating between television, radio and online desks.

Students at the FT and BBC on placement do not just make the coffee, but publish articles under their own bylines. For example, in the 2010/11 Financial Journalism MA cohort, Mario Sovago published extensively on the Beyondbrics blog and Tanya Ashreena on the personal finance section of the Financial Times; while Emily Blewett and Huayuan Lu both had articles published on the BBC News website.

Paid internships on a competitive basis are also available during the summer at Bloomberg and Reuters. In 2011, 5 out of the 20 places allocated worldwide (excluding the USA) under the Bloomberg training scheme were awarded to students from the MA Financial Journalism.

Career Prospects

Graduate success

Three quarters of the students from 2010/11 found paid employment as financial journalists within three months of graduation. Their destinations were:
  • Financial Times group (4)
  • Bloomberg (3)
  • BBC (1)
  • Energy Intelligence (1)
  • Reuters (1)
This extraordinary success rate, with several students receiving multiple job offers, demonstrates the respect that leading employers have for City graduates in financial journalism.

Department of Journalism: excellent graduate prospects

We have been running Journalism courses at City since 1976. In the 35 years since, over 4,000 students have graduated and are now working in the media, in the UK and internationally.

Read alumni stories and see the full list of graduate destinations in the 25th anniversary issue of our alumni magazine XCity.

Prominent City alumni working in financial journalism

City Journalism alumni from earlier years now working in business and finance journalism include:
  • Ian King (Deputy Business Editor, The Times)
  • Kamal Ahmed (Business Editor, Sunday Telegraph)
  • Faisal Islam (Economics Correspondent, Channel 4 News)
  • Stephen Foley (Associate Business Editor, The Independent)
  • James Daley (Personal Finance Editor, The Independent)
  • Kathryn Cooper (Money Editor, The Times)
  • John Stepak (Editor, Money Week)
  • Kiran Stacey (Reporter, Financial Times)
  • Lucy Warwick-Ching (Editor of www.ft.com/money for the FT and producer of the Money Show)
  • Tracey Boles (City and Business Editor, The Express)

Find out more about City University London

Application Deadline

5 March 2012

Please submit the following:

One application form. You can download a pdf file of our application form below. An online application form will be available shortly.

  1. Two references. We prefer you to submit one academic reference, and one reference from a journalism- or finance-related work placement.
    Please note that you are responsible for ensuring that your references reach us at the same time as your application.
  2. A copy of your degree transcript. We require one of the following: an original transcript; a copy certified by your university; or an electronic scan of your transcript. If you have not yet graduated, you will be required to submit your degree transcript as soon as it is available. You will not be able to register as a City student without having supplied your degree transcript.
  3. Details of your work experience in journalism or the financial sector. Applicants should be able to demonstrate commitment to financial journalism through relevant work experience. Either include these on a separate sheet with your postal application, or copy and paste the details into the "Personal Statement" section of the online application form.
  4. The following two articles. Either include these with your postal application, or copy and paste them into the "Personal Statement" section of the online application form.

    Article 1: explain in not more than 250 words why you want to come on our course and study financial journalism, and what you expect to gain from it. Please include relevant details of your interest and experience in both journalism and the financial agenda. (This replaces the "Statement in Support of Application" requested in the application form.)
    Article 2: a 250-word article on a topic of your choice in business or financial journalism, based on your own personal investigation of the topic, including an interview with someone relevant to the topic.

 

Apply Online

or 

Download a PDF version of the application form (pdf)
Download a PDF version of the reference form (pdf)
 

Application deadline

We will accept applications until the course is full. We suggest that you submit your application as early as possible to avoid disappointment.

It is your responsibility to submit a completed application, including references and articles specified above.

Selection days

Most interviews will take place between March and June 2012.

Offers

You should expect to hear whether or not you have been selected for a place on the course within a week or two of your interview.

Return address

Please return all application material, marked "Postgraduate Applications 2012", to: Admissions, Graduate School of Journalism, City University London, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, UK.