Five J-School students win Mark Felt Scholarships in investigative reporting

Carrying on its tradition of strong support for the rising generation of investigative reporters, the J-School has selected five students to receive prestigious Mark Felt Scholarships. The $10,000 stipends enable students to devote their second year in the School’s master’s program to a piece of long-form journalism under the editorial guidance of some of the country’s top investigative reporters, including Lowell Bergman, Tim McGirk and Matt Isaacs.

The Mark Felt Scholarship fund was made possible by a generous donation from Bob Bishop (’77), a School alum who was inspired to get involved in journalism by the work of The Washington Post‘s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Years later, after one of the Post reporters’ pivotal Watergate sources was revealed to be a senior FBI official, then-associate director Mark Felt, Bishop decided to start the scholarship program in honor of Felt’s courage in guiding the Post’s investigation.

“It’s been most gratifying to see students pursue projects that many say they would not have been able to do without the support of the Felt Scholarships,” Bishop said. “And, as Watergate had much to do with me finding my way to Cal’s Journalism program many years ago, these scholarships seem especially fitting.”

Over the years, Bishop has funded the partial tuition of dozens of scholars. This year, the Mark Felt Scholarships have gone to second-year students Heather Mack, Andy Mannix, Alexander Mullaney, Jason Paladino and Jake Nicol.

“Bob Bishop has been a tireless and generous supporter of the School’s most valuable initiatives, and enabling hard-driving young investigative journalists to chase down tough and important stories is at the top of the list,” said J-school dean Edward Wasserman. “We’re immensely grateful to Bob, and proud that thanks to him we’re able to give these reporters the financial backing they deserve.”

Paladino traveled to Virginia to investigate a mine-sweeping helicopter used by the Navy that has one of the highest rates of deadly crashes in the armed services. Mack is examining the development and use of probiotics”Óan unregulated food and drug additive that is inefficient at best and potentially harmful at worst. Mannix is looking into the inordinately high frequency of staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct incidents in correctional facilities across the country. Mullaney’s work focuses on the hidden history of San Francisco, and Nicol is investigating the proposed interoceanic canal in Nicaragua, potentially the largest civil engineering project in the world.

Mack said the Felt scholarship gave her the financial support she needed to negotiate the logistical and administrative obstacles she encountered in her investigation.

“Just about every major player in my story was scheduled to be at the same place at the same time for this conference in Brussels, but I had no way of getting there on my own,” Mack said. “Thanks to the Mark Felt scholarship, I was able to travel to Brussels and get the contacts and information that the story really needed.”

Paladino’s investigation reached a national audience when it aired on NBC Nightly News in February.

“The Mark Felt Scholarship allowed me to pursue a story far more ambitious than any I’d attempted before,” Paladino said. “The chance to lead this investigation has dramatically improved the trajectory of my career in journalism.”