The Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute is for writers who are driven to interrogate the world around them. Here, you will produce work that examines aspects of our culture with the support of deep research, an understanding of history and lines of influence, a critical and questioning eye, and a belief in the power of good writing.<br><br>Journalism is not just about reporting on individual news events. More and more, it's about getting a handle on the complicated reality that frames those events the ever-shifting patterns of culture that determine how we live and what we make of our lives. As the mainstream media expand their cultural coverage and alternative publications and websites proliferate, there has never been more need for engaging, knowledgeable cultural reporting and analysis.<br>The program is dedicated to original, creative, cultural writing, The arts and books and popular culture, the immense variety of social groups, from gay families to Pakistani cabdrivers to obsessive gamers, the explosion of social controversies, the rise of religious fundamentalism, at home and abroad, the changing nature of war, the writer's own experience: all this is fodder for the cultural journalist. Cultural journalism is for writers with an itch to understand connectionsbetween news event and context, present and past, art and society, public and private. Over the last tumultuous decade, the need for such explorations has only intensified.