Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

The Planet Is Suffering. How Do We Write About It?

Here’s the thing: The climate is warming, our population is growing, resource consumption is surging, and it isn’t looking so great for us—or our fellow earth-dwelling organisms. Speaking of which, the UN just released a report warning of “unprecedented” decline in environmental health and the threat of imminent extinction for some 1 million species.

I know, you’ve heard it a thousand times. Those environmental journalists just won’t leave you alone!

Posted on June 20, 2019 - 3:30pm

Out at First: What the Carmody Case Tells Us About Press Freedoms

It was more Keystone Cops than Law and Order. On May 10, wielding a sledgehammer and drawn guns, San Francisco police raided the apartment of Bryan Carmody, a freelance videographer who had leaked a police report on the death of popular and progressive public defender Jeff Adachi. The confidential account contained salacious hints of drug use and extramarital sex.

“There’s a message implicit in the denouement of this affair, and it’s this—messing with the press carries risk.”

Posted on June 20, 2019 - 3:29pm

Black Panthers at 50: New Exhibit from the Party’s Go-to Photog

Stephen Shames arrived at our interview with a faded California Golden Bears cap in hand and a black power pin on his lapel. Apt accessories for the 1969 UC Berkeley grad who spent the years between 1967 and 1969 as the Black Panther Party’s most trusted photographer.

Posted on November 2, 2016 - 10:26am

CalMatters: Old Blues Deliver the Scoop in Sacramento

It was about 10 years ago that the old news model was declared dead, skewered fatally through the heart by the Internet and social media. People began getting the information they wanted when they wanted, in gobs and snippets from a vast menu of choices ranging from their Facebook friends to the Gray Lady to that impeachable source for celebrity train-wreck updates, PopSugar News. Local newspapers folded or imploded. And with the manifold options available online, television news seemed more weary, stale and unprofitable than ever; viewership declined.

Posted on October 10, 2016 - 2:37pm

Wheel of Time: A Grieving Mother Sees All Her Alma Mater Offers, and What it Lacks

The campus was shining as only our spectacular splotch of Bay Area real estate can do. Clusters of high school kids posed for pictures at the university they hoped to attend. Cal T-shirts, sweatshirts, shorts, and athletic jackets sauntered by. Frisbees flew, and a giant dog galloped over to offer a passionate greeting that left me happily cloaked in white fur.

From the Summer 2016 Welcome to There issue of California.

You’re Out: ‘The Return’ Documents the Release of Former Three Strikes Prisoners

Lock ’em up and throw away the key: For several generations California’s response to rising crime rates consisted of a variation on this theme, culminating with 1994’s severe Three Strikes law. But for the past two decades, violent crime in California has been falling, and by 2012, California voters took the unprecedented step of approving Prop. 36. For the first time in American history, voters passed an initiative that ran counter to the tough-on-crime movement. Serving as a key to long-locked prison doors, Prop. 36 enables hard-time convicts to petition for early release.

Posted on May 12, 2016 - 12:45pm

Retraction Action: Science Fraud Is Up, but More Retractions Could Be a Good Thing

Scientific retractions are on the rise. In 2001 there were 40 incidents in which published results of scientific research were retracted, but in less than a decade that number had ballooned to 400. And yes, the publication rate had also increased during that time, but by only 44 percent—not nearly enough to explain away a tenfold jump in retractions.

So why is this happening?

Posted on March 16, 2016 - 2:08pm

Are Journalism Schools Just Whistling Past the Graveyard—or Resuscitating the News Biz?

The keynote speaker at the 2014 commencement of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism—an elite institution that prepares students for a profession in which the prospects are, let’s face it, a little touch-and-go at the moment— was a former small-time drug dealer and heavy-duty coke addict who had been in and out of rehab five times, a “fat thug” (in his own words) who’d been known to beat women and wave a gun around on occasion.

From the Winter 2015 Breaking News issue of California.
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