TL;DR: CHED prescribes two journalism degrees under CMO No. 41, series of 2017. B Journalism is a 113-unit professional non-thesis degree. BA Journalism is 140 units and requires both a special project and a thesis. Both require an internship of at least 200 hours in the pre-final year covering all aspects of editorial work. There is no PRC board exam for journalists - journalism is not among the Commission's forty-six Professional Regulatory Boards.
Most students searching for "AB Journalism" do not know there are two versions of the degree with a 27-unit gap between them, and that only one ends in a thesis. That single fact changes which schools you should apply to and whether graduate study is realistically on your path. Here is what CHED actually prescribes.
The Two Degrees
CHED Memorandum Order No. 41, series of 2017 carries the title "Policies, Standards and Guidelines for Bachelor in Journalism (B Journalism) and Bachelor of Arts in Journalism (BA Journalism) Programs." It was issued under Republic Act No. 7722 and by virtue of Commission en banc Resolution No. 231-2017 dated 28 March 2017.
The order defines the split in a single clause: B Journalism and BA Journalism, "the former being a professional non-thesis degree."
| B Journalism | BA Journalism | |
|---|---|---|
| Total units | 113 | 140 |
| General Education | 36 | 36 |
| Core courses | 18 | 21 |
| Required courses | 30 | 39 |
| Electives | 9 | 12 |
| Cognate courses | 6 | 18 |
| Physical Education | 8 | 8 |
| NSTP | 6 | 6 |
| Special project | Required | Required |
| Thesis | Not required | Required |
The practical reading: B Journalism is the newsroom-facing degree, tighter and more vocational. BA Journalism adds a thesis and triples the cognate requirement from 6 to 18 units, which CHED explains as exposure to a non-journalism discipline. If you intend to go on to a master's, or you want a beat that requires genuine subject knowledge - business, health, environment, courts - the BA is built for that.
CMO No. 41 also instructs schools whose programmes carry other names, giving "BA/AB Mass Communication, major in Journalism" as its example, to adopt the prescribed degree names. Some schools still advertise the older label. Ask the registrar what will actually appear on the diploma, because that is what employers and graduate schools read.
What You Will Study
Core courses
CHED's core list covers the discipline's foundations rather than its craft: Introduction to Communication, Communication Theory, Media and Society, Media Law, plus the Internship and the Special Project, with Thesis added for the BA.
Media Law sitting in the core is worth noting. Journalism in the Philippines is practised without a licence but not without legal exposure, and libel, privacy, access to information and source protection are all live working problems rather than academic ones.
Required courses
This is the craft spine. CMO No. 41 names: Journalism Practices and Principles, News Reporting and Writing, Feature Writing, News Editing and Production, Photojournalism, Research in Journalism, Multimedia Journalism, Broadcast Journalism, Journalism Ethics, Investigative Journalism, Editorial Management, Journalism Studies, and a Seminar on Journalism Issues.
B Journalism takes 30 units from this pool; BA Journalism takes 39. CHED adds that core, required and elective courses "have prerequisites to ensure maximum appreciation and understanding of the courses" - meaning the sequence is not flexible. You cannot take investigative journalism before you have done news reporting.
Schools may also add their own journalism courses beyond the CHED list, depending on their vision and mission.
Unit counts above come from CHED's sample curricula. Schools may vary the detail while meeting the outcomes, so confirm the current programme of study with the department.
The 200-Hour Internship
This is the most concrete requirement in the whole order, and it is the one to interrogate schools about.
CMO No. 41 requires that "in their pre-final year, students shall undertake internship in newspaper offices, radio or television stations, online publications, with a minimum of 200 hours and comprising all aspects of editorial work." The prerequisite is incoming graduating student status, and CHED highly recommends conducting the internship in the summer prior to the graduating year.
Two phrases in there matter. "All aspects of editorial work" means the placement is not supposed to park you on social media captions for two months. And "newspaper offices, radio or television stations, online publications" means the placement should be in an actual news organisation.
When you visit a school, ask which newsrooms took their interns in the last two years, by name, and what those interns did. A journalism programme's placement network is more predictive of your first job than its prospectus.
The Special Project and the Thesis
The special project is required in both degrees. CHED describes it as enabling students "to apply research, reporting and production skills in a journalism project," and gives examples: an investigative report, an explanatory story, a multimedia project, long-form or narrative journalism, a documentary. Its prerequisite is junior standing.
The thesis is BA-only. CHED frames it as producing "scholarly output in the field of Journalism Studies, preparatory to graduate studies." That is a different object from the special project - one is journalism, the other is research about journalism.
BA Journalism students do both. If you are choosing between programmes, that is a real workload difference in the final two years. Our guide to writing thesis chapters covers the research side.
Is There a Licence to Practise Journalism?
No. The Professional Regulation Commission operates forty-six Professional Regulatory Boards, covering everything from Accountancy to Veterinary Medicine, and journalism is not one of them. There is no PRC examination for journalists, no professional identification card, and no legal requirement to hold a journalism degree to report the news in the Philippines.
That has two consequences students should understand before enrolling. The first is that your degree is not a gate anyone else has to pass through - people without journalism degrees work in newsrooms, and you will be measured against them. The second follows from it: your portfolio is the credential. Published bylines from a campus publication, internship clips, your special project, photographs and video you have actually produced. Employers read those. A journalism programme's value lies substantially in how much publishable work it makes you produce.
If licensure is central to how you are choosing a course, our courses with board exams guide lays out which degrees actually lead to one.
Careers
CMO No. 41 lists the destinations CHED designed the programmes around: reporters and writers for print, broadcast, online, multimedia and digital media; editors and producers across the same platforms; news analysts and commentators; visual journalists, including photojournalists, video journalists and graphics journalists; proofreaders; editorial assistants; news website and app developers; and media researchers.
The list is more current than journalism course descriptions usually are - "news website/app developers" and "graphics journalists" are in the CHED order itself, not just in industry commentary. Multimedia Journalism is a required course for the same reason.
Beyond newsrooms, journalism graduates commonly move into corporate communications, government information offices, non-profit communications, research and fact-checking operations, and content and editorial roles in publishing and technology companies.
We are not printing salary figures here. Entry pay in Philippine newsrooms varies sharply between national outlets, regional papers, broadcast networks and digital-first operations, and the aggregate figures available for "journalist" do not separate them. We would rather leave the number out than publish one we cannot stand behind.
A Real University Curriculum
The University of the Philippines Diliman revised its BA Journalism curriculum in 2018, and the approval documents show exactly how a university adapts to a CHED order.
The change, approved by the University Council on 19 June 2018 and effective from the first semester of AY 2018-2019, cut the programme from 147 units to 143 units. The stated justification was the reduction in the number of general education courses and the rationalisation of required College of Mass Communication courses. General Education dropped from 45 units to 36 - the figure CHED prescribes - while core journalism courses rose and a block of free non-journalism electives was created.
The curriculum documents also spell out the prerequisite chain in a way prospectuses usually do not: J102 is the prerequisite for all higher journalism courses, and specified history and English courses must be taken before J102. Fail the gatekeeper course and the whole major stalls.
Note that state universities admit through their own entrance tests - for UP that is the UPCAT. Private universities set their own requirements. Some journalism programmes also screen with an essay examination or interview on top of the general entrance test, so check the department's own rules and not just the university's.
Journalism, Communication or Broadcasting?
CHED issued separate memorandum orders for three neighbouring degrees in 2017, and the difference is real:
| Degree | CHED order | What it is built for |
|---|---|---|
| B / BA Journalism | CMO No. 41, s. 2017 | Reporting, editing and news production |
| BA Communication | CMO No. 35, s. 2017 | Communication as a discipline, with tracks |
| BA Broadcasting | CMO No. 37, s. 2017 | Radio, television and multi-platform production |
If you want to report, journalism is the direct degree. If you want to produce for broadcast and emerging media, see our AB Broadcasting guide. If you want a broader communication degree with the option to specialise later, see our AB Communication guide. And if the pull is toward campaigns and brand work rather than news, our advertising and PR guide explains how that side is actually structured in the Philippines.
Is a Journalism Degree Right for You?
- The work is production, constantly. News writing, feature writing, editing, photojournalism and multimedia are all separate required courses with separate outputs.
- The internship is 200 hours minimum and it is in your pre-final year. Plan the summer.
- BA students carry two capstones. A special project and a thesis.
- There is no licence. Portfolio and clips replace it.
- Which degree you choose affects graduate study. The non-thesis B Journalism is the more vocational route.
Coming from senior high, HUMSS is the most direct on-ramp - see our HUMSS strand guide.
Comparing schools? Browse schools on SchoolFinderPH to compare programmes and locations.
Sources
- CHED Memorandum Order No. 41, s. 2017 - PSGs for Bachelor in Journalism and Bachelor of Arts in Journalism Programs (official PDF)
- Commission on Higher Education - 2017 CHED Memorandum Orders index
- Professional Regulation Commission - Professional Regulatory Boards
- University of the Philippines Diliman, Office of the University Registrar - BA in Journalism curriculum documents (official PDF)
