The focus program in business communication is tailored for students interested in business reporting or editing for the media as well as corporate communication.
The program equips students with advanced communication abilities, focusing on writing, speaking and presenting in a professional business context. These skills are crucial for effective interactions with colleagues, clients and stakeholders and help lay the groundwork for career success.
Graduates of the Business Communication Focus Program have secured positions at prestigious organizations like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg News and Reuters. This certificate opens doors to careers in business media, corporate communications and related fields and prepares students entering the competitive job market.
The program allows students to demonstrate expertise beyond the typical media and journalism curriculum, making it ideal for those interested in business reporting, editing or corporate communication.
The business communication curriculum allows students to explore what it means to cover businesses and the people who run them. Course content includes learning the basics of Securities Exchange Commission filings and business information databases, breaking down data and analytics and identifying the people who impact and who are impacted by economic change.
Want to learn more? Reach out to Interim Director of the Business Communication Focus Program David Francis with any questions.
“MEJO 467: Business Concepts for Communications” is required for the focus program in business communication. In addition, students must complete two of the following courses in the business communication curriculum, which emphasize business journalism, corporate communication, advertising and other fields where understanding and writing effectively about business are valued.
In this course, students will gain a fundamental understanding of business and learn how to write about it. Students will explore how various aspects of business, finance and corporate leadership relate to individuals, communities, companies, governments and world events, and they will learn how to write about that impact clearly and concisely.
Designed to provide the larger business context for students anticipating careers in advertising, public relations and other media industries, the course teaches the vocabulary and basic concepts of marketing as it will be practiced.
This course is designed to build on your basic knowledge of various aspects of the economy and give you the tools and skills you need to synthesize sometimes complex information, understand how people are impacted by this information and communicate both the information and the impact clearly and accurately to an audience.
Methods and tactics of covering businesses for mass communication. Why and how companies operate and how to write stories about corporate news from public records and other sources.
Role of media in United States society and effects on public perceptions of business. Relationship of business press and corporate America. Current issues in business journalism.
An introduction to basic statistics and numerical and mathematical literacy, as well as a look at professional data-driven journalism projects. Students who successfully complete this course will be able to acquire, organize, analyze and present data to a general news audience.
This course teaches students how a news wire operates. Students will report stories about North Carolina companies on a real-time basis and market those stories to state media via e-mail and a website. Honors version available.
Learn how to oversee and manage a business news wire, including distribution of content to media organizations, managing an e-mail newsletter and handling social media. Also involves some reporting and writing. Honors version available.
The course will focus on the changing economics affecting 21st-century news organizations and the economic drivers of other content providers such as music companies, the film industry, online aggregators and commerce sites for lessons that can be applied across industry segments. Honors version available.
Adjunct Instructor
Interim Director of the Business Communication Focus Program
Office Hours: By appointment
When Cooper Metts ’24 was enrolled in “MEJO 630: Business News Wire” in spring 2023 as part of the business communication program, he didn’t expect to end up reporting on the sewage and wastewater limitations in Siler City and Pittsboro.
“I never thought of that as being something that could affect business,” he said. “But it definitely affected them.”
As a journalism and economics double major, Metts is fascinated by what these types of economic development projects mean for the people they affect, especially in lower income communities or areas in development.
Along his route to pursuing either a business reporting career or a job in governmental economic development, the classes Metts has taken for the program have allowed him to concentrate his upper-level journalism classes on his area of interest — and gain versatile skills like reading and understanding business filings from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“That’s something that I definitely don’t do in economics, but I have done it in my journalism classes,” Metts said. “I think I’ve also learned a lot about networking with people specifically for sources for stories, and I’ve learned a lot about how to find stories.”
