UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
Encyclopedia
The UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is a graduate professional school
on the campus of University of California, Berkeley
. It is among the top graduate journalism schools in the United States
, and is designed to produce journalist
s with a two-year Master of Journalism (MJ) degree.
The program is located in UC Berkeley's North Gate Hall, near the intersection of Euclid and Hearst Avenues in Berkeley, CA. It is currently being served by interim dean Professor Tom Goldstein, after former dean Neil Henry stepped down. Most courses offered by the school are on the graduate level, with few official courses for undergraduates.
The school serves host to, or sponsors, a great number of events. Notable speakers from around the world have shared their insights on current events in the media. Recent speakers have included Bill Clinton
, Al Gore
, Robert McNamara
, Hans Blix
, George Soros
, Cokie Roberts
, Paul Krugman
, Dan Rather
, Bob Woodruff and Robert Krulwich
.
, documentary film
, environmental and science journalism
, international reporting
, investigative reporting
, magazine
, multimedia
, newspaper
, photojournalism
, political reporting
, radio
, television or broadcast media
and Urban Reporting.
The school has stated a clear mission of providing students a hands-on approach to journalism. While many graduate journalism schools have programs that are more theory-oriented, Berkeley focuses on offering students real world experiences and currently requires every student to perform an internship at a media outlet as a degree requirement—preferably between their first and second year of study.
Every student is also required to take an introductory news reporting course called J200, (named after its course designation.) J200 is formulated for students to delve into the world of all forms of journalism, but specifically writing, by covering stories on local events. Print, or written journalism, is often considered the foundation of all news media, and teaches students the fundamentals in news gathering and production for a mass audience. Stories written by students are published in one of three hyperlocal
news websites that are run by the school: MissionLocal, OaklandNorth and RichmondConfidential.
Noted faculty members include food expert and author Michael Pollan
, former 60 Minutes news producer Lowell Bergman
, New Yorker writer and author Mark Danner
, NPR Morning Edition founding editor William J. Drummond
, documentary filmmaker Jon H. Else
and former Africa bureau chief for the Washington Post Neil Henry
.
won a $1.6 million (later reduced to $800,000) libel award from The National Enquirer
over an article that she said implied she had been intoxicated in a Washington restaurant. She donated a portion of that to the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism saying she hoped the suit would teach aspiring journalists the dangers of defaming individuals in articles. The money was used to fund Law and Ethics courses at the school.
China expert and author Orville Schell
had been serving as Dean of the school since 1996, up until the summer of 2007. Preceding his position was Thomas Goldstein, who had served as dean since 1988. Goldstein left to become the dean of Columbia University's
Graduate School of Journalism. He stepped down from that position after five years, despite being credited for increasing endowments for that school from $54 million to $84 million over his short stint there. He is currently teaching a news writing class at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Pulitzer Prize
winning American media critic Ben Bagdikian
also served as a past dean of the UC Berkeley's School of Journalism.
in the National Register of Historic Places
. It is located immediately southeast of the intersection of Euclid and Hearst avenues in Berkeley, Calif., on the campus of UC Berkeley
.
The name is derived from the general area in front of the school called "North Gate," represented by two stone pillars. It serves as the northern most entrance of the primary University compound, and is opposite to Sather Gate
, the southern most entrance of the University.
North Gate Hall was built in 1904 as a 1800 square feet (167.2 m²) building known at the time as the "Ark" to house the architectural department. The building cost $4,394.59 to construct and consisted of an atelier, office for John Galen Howard
and an architectural library with volumes donated by Phoebe Apperson Hearst -- mother to William Randolph Hearst
.
The building was one of many on campus which did not follow the typical Beaux-Arts architectural style
, which had been regarded the most cultured, beautiful and "scientific" style of the cultural establishment at the time. Instead, the building was made only to be temporary, non-academic, or not particularly "serious." Other such buildings in the shingle or "Collegiate Gothic" style on campus include: North Gate Hall, Dwinelle Annex, Stephens Hall and the Men's Faculty Club.
A second addition to the Ark was completed in 1908, increasing the size of the building to 3400 square feet (315.9 m²). The new addition was built further up the hill (easterly) and houses what is known today as the Greenhouse and upper and lower newsrooms.
In 1936, Walter Steilberg designed a library wing composed of reinforced concrete-panel, a stark contrast to the dark shingled appearance of the original building.
In 1957, the architecture school was united with the departments of Landscape Architecture, City and regional Planning, and Decorative Arts to form the College of Environmental Design
. The "Ark" was relocated to Wurster Hall in 1964, and the building was renamed the Engineering Research Services Building. It later was renamed "North Gate Hall," and served as the location for the Graduate School of Journalism.
In 1993 the building underwent extensive seismic renovations causing uproar from Berkeley preservationists
who had saved the building from destruction 17 years earlier. It was reported by the San Francisco Chronicle
that dry rot had set in to much of the building. Damage from aging was so bad, one teacher said he could puncture a supporting column with his fountain pen. It was classified as Berkeley campus' most vulnerable buildings in an earthquake.
Journalism school
A journalism school is a school or department, usually part of an established university, where journalists are trained. An increasingly used term for a journalism department, school or college is 'J-School'...
on the campus of University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. It is among the top graduate journalism schools in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and is designed to produce journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s with a two-year Master of Journalism (MJ) degree.
The program is located in UC Berkeley's North Gate Hall, near the intersection of Euclid and Hearst Avenues in Berkeley, CA. It is currently being served by interim dean Professor Tom Goldstein, after former dean Neil Henry stepped down. Most courses offered by the school are on the graduate level, with few official courses for undergraduates.
The school serves host to, or sponsors, a great number of events. Notable speakers from around the world have shared their insights on current events in the media. Recent speakers have included Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
, Robert McNamara
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...
, Hans Blix
Hans Blix
is a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs . Blix was also the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, when he was succeeded by Dimitris Perrikos...
, George Soros
George Soros
George Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
, Cokie Roberts
Cokie Roberts
Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Roberts , best known as Cokie Roberts, is an American Emmy Award-winning journalist and bestselling author. She is a contributing senior news analyst for National Public Radio as well as a regular roundtable analyst for the current This Week with Christiane...
, Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman
Paul Robin Krugman is an American economist, professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times...
, Dan Rather
Dan Rather
Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
, Bob Woodruff and Robert Krulwich
Robert Krulwich
Robert Krulwich is an American radio and television journalist whose specialty is explaining complex topics in depth. He has worked as a full-time employee of ABC, CBS, National Public Radio, and Pacifica. He has done assignment pieces for ABC's Nightline and World News Tonight, as well as PBS's...
.
Curriculum
The UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism focuses on thirteen areas of journalism. They include business reportingBusiness journalism
Business journalism is the branch of journalism that tracks, records, analyzes and interprets the economic changes that take place in a society...
, documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, environmental and science journalism
Environmental journalism
Environmental journalism is the collection, verification, production, distribution and exhibition of information regarding current events, trends, issues and people that are associated with the non-human world with which humans necessarily interact...
, international reporting
Foreign correspondent
Foreign Correspondent may refer to:*Foreign correspondent *Foreign Correspondent , an Alfred Hitchcock film*Foreign Correspondent , an Australian current affairs programme...
, investigative reporting
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
, magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
, multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
, newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
, photojournalism
Photojournalism
Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism...
, political reporting
Political journalism
Political journalism is a broad branch of journalism that includes coverage of all aspects of politics and political science, although the term usually refers specifically to coverage of civil governments and political power....
, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
, television or broadcast media
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and Urban Reporting.
The school has stated a clear mission of providing students a hands-on approach to journalism. While many graduate journalism schools have programs that are more theory-oriented, Berkeley focuses on offering students real world experiences and currently requires every student to perform an internship at a media outlet as a degree requirement—preferably between their first and second year of study.
Every student is also required to take an introductory news reporting course called J200, (named after its course designation.) J200 is formulated for students to delve into the world of all forms of journalism, but specifically writing, by covering stories on local events. Print, or written journalism, is often considered the foundation of all news media, and teaches students the fundamentals in news gathering and production for a mass audience. Stories written by students are published in one of three hyperlocal
Hyperlocal
The term hyperlocal can be used as a noun in isolation or as a modifier of some other term . It connotes having the character of being oriented around a well defined, community scale area with primary focus being directed towards the concerns of its residents...
news websites that are run by the school: MissionLocal, OaklandNorth and RichmondConfidential.
Noted faculty members include food expert and author Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."...
, former 60 Minutes news producer Lowell Bergman
Lowell Bergman
Lowell A. Bergman is an American investigative reporter with The New York Times and a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline...
, New Yorker writer and author Mark Danner
Mark Danner
Mark David Danner is a prominent American writer, journalist, and educator. He is a former staff writer for The New Yorker and frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Danner specializes in U.S. foreign affairs, war and politics, and has written extensively on Haiti, Central America,...
, NPR Morning Edition founding editor William J. Drummond
William J. Drummond
William Joe Drummond is an American journalist. He teaches at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism....
, documentary filmmaker Jon H. Else
Jon H. Else
-Awards:* 1988 MacArthur Fellows Program• 1989 Emmy, "Yosemite The Fate Of Heaven" director• 1993 Emmy, "The Great Depression" writer• 1998 Emmy "Don't Say Goodby" cinematographer• 1999 Emmy "Sing Faster: The Stagehands Ring Cycle"...
and former Africa bureau chief for the Washington Post Neil Henry
Neil Henry (journalist)
Neil Henry is an American journalist and professor who is currently dean of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism...
.
In the news
In 1981 celebrity Carol BurnettCarol Burnett
Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut...
won a $1.6 million (later reduced to $800,000) libel award from The National Enquirer
The National Enquirer
The National Enquirer is an American supermarket tabloid now published by American Media Inc . Founded in 1926, the tabloid has gone through a variety of changes over the years....
over an article that she said implied she had been intoxicated in a Washington restaurant. She donated a portion of that to the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism saying she hoped the suit would teach aspiring journalists the dangers of defaming individuals in articles. The money was used to fund Law and Ethics courses at the school.
China expert and author Orville Schell
Orville Schell
Orville Hickock Schell III is an activist and writer working on China, and is the Arthus Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York...
had been serving as Dean of the school since 1996, up until the summer of 2007. Preceding his position was Thomas Goldstein, who had served as dean since 1988. Goldstein left to become the dean of Columbia University's
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
Graduate School of Journalism. He stepped down from that position after five years, despite being credited for increasing endowments for that school from $54 million to $84 million over his short stint there. He is currently teaching a news writing class at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winning American media critic Ben Bagdikian
Ben Bagdikian
Ben Haig Bagdikian is an American educator and journalist. Bagdikian has made journalism his profession since 1941. He is a significant American media critic and the dean emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism...
also served as a past dean of the UC Berkeley's School of Journalism.
North Gate Hall
The UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is housed in North Gate Hall, a designated National Historic LandmarkNational Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. It is located immediately southeast of the intersection of Euclid and Hearst avenues in Berkeley, Calif., on the campus of UC Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
The name is derived from the general area in front of the school called "North Gate," represented by two stone pillars. It serves as the northern most entrance of the primary University compound, and is opposite to Sather Gate
Sather Gate
Sather Gate is a prominent landmark separating Sproul Plaza from the bridge over Strawberry Creek, leading to the center of the University of California, Berkeley campus. The gate was donated by Jane K. Sather, a benefactor of the university, in memory of her late husband Peder Sather, a trustee of...
, the southern most entrance of the University.
North Gate Hall was built in 1904 as a 1800 square feet (167.2 m²) building known at the time as the "Ark" to house the architectural department. The building cost $4,394.59 to construct and consisted of an atelier, office for John Galen Howard
John Galen Howard
John Galen Howard was an American architect.He is best known for his work as the supervising architect of the Master Plan for the University of California, Berkeley campus, and for founding the University of California's architecture program...
and an architectural library with volumes donated by Phoebe Apperson Hearst -- mother to William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
.
The building was one of many on campus which did not follow the typical Beaux-Arts architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
, which had been regarded the most cultured, beautiful and "scientific" style of the cultural establishment at the time. Instead, the building was made only to be temporary, non-academic, or not particularly "serious." Other such buildings in the shingle or "Collegiate Gothic" style on campus include: North Gate Hall, Dwinelle Annex, Stephens Hall and the Men's Faculty Club.
A second addition to the Ark was completed in 1908, increasing the size of the building to 3400 square feet (315.9 m²). The new addition was built further up the hill (easterly) and houses what is known today as the Greenhouse and upper and lower newsrooms.
In 1936, Walter Steilberg designed a library wing composed of reinforced concrete-panel, a stark contrast to the dark shingled appearance of the original building.
In 1957, the architecture school was united with the departments of Landscape Architecture, City and regional Planning, and Decorative Arts to form the College of Environmental Design
UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design
The College of Environmental Design, also known as the or simply is one of 14 schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. The school is located in Wurster Hall on the southeast corner of the main UC Berkeley campus...
. The "Ark" was relocated to Wurster Hall in 1964, and the building was renamed the Engineering Research Services Building. It later was renamed "North Gate Hall," and served as the location for the Graduate School of Journalism.
In 1993 the building underwent extensive seismic renovations causing uproar from Berkeley preservationists
Historic preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
who had saved the building from destruction 17 years earlier. It was reported by the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
that dry rot had set in to much of the building. Damage from aging was so bad, one teacher said he could puncture a supporting column with his fountain pen. It was classified as Berkeley campus' most vulnerable buildings in an earthquake.