Reporting on Latin America

Collage of students reporting abroad.

Reporting on Latin America began three decades with our first travel course to Tijuana, Mexico, in the spring of 1991.

Since then, courses to nearly every Latin American country have guided students through the complexities of reporting in a foreign country. This involves overcoming obstacles, such as  not knowing the language, but also getting to know a country quickly to produce first-rate work.

Throughout the semester, students get backgrounders on the country, learn how to find a story that’s doable in the travel time, set up a reporting plan and begin to execute that plan even before leaving on the trip.

Just like in a newsroom, the student must convince the news editor that the story is newsworthy, current, and contains the proper elements that make it compelling. It must also work for whatever format the student has chosen.

The preparations culminate in a reporting trip during spring break in which students hit the ground running to write stories, produce films, and create multimedia projects.

Hands on Learning

Students participate in on-the-ground reporting in various countries, guided by experienced journalists and local experts. Once students return, they experience an intense editing process to produce articles, videos or radio spots for publication. The work from a 2001 trip to Cuba — Capitalism, God and a Good Cigar — was published by Duke University Press.

Students have placed work in the Washington Post, Newsday, the Christian Science Monitor and many other publications.

Mentorship and Training

Our projects offer mentorship from seasoned journalists, providing students with editorial guidance throughout their reporting journeys. Classes cover critical aspects of international journalism, including ethical reporting, safety protocols, and learning portable recording skills to use in multimedia storytelling.

Emeritus Professor (and founder and executive editor of San Francisco’s award-winning Mission Local) Lydia Chávez and three of her siblings, Robert, Susana and Martin — all graduates of UC Berkeley — established the Manuel and Geraldine Chavez Latin American Fellowship in honor of their parents. The fellowship brings a Latin American journalist to teach the course and pays for a group of students to travel to Latin America.

 

You won’t just report about these countries, you’ll report from these countries.

What Our Graduates Are Saying...

Closeup image of a woman with short wavy hair in a newsroom smiling.

...They taught me everything I needed to know for my first reporting job abroad.

After majoring in International Relations in college, I wanted to explore the political and cultural shifts that I had studied in the classroom on the ground. I applied to UC Berkeley because its international reporting program is based on learning by doing. During my time at the journalism school, I reported from three different countries. My professors, top-notch international correspondents, were there throughout the process, answering questions and helping me solve problems in real time. They taught me everything I needed to know for my first reporting job abroad. Those lessons have endured: Now an editor, I routinely share them with reporters.

Ana Campoy ('02)

Editor on The Washington Post's Climate team
Closeup photo of a man with closely cropped dark hair, beard and mustache wearing a blue shirt in front of a city setting.

"...an invaluable experience, giving me tools and skills that helped prepare me for every other reporting trip I've taken in my career"

I chose to enroll in the Latin America reporting program to get my first experience reporting abroad. The course prepared me for a 10-day reporting trip to El Salvador where I traveled the countryside speaking with people who lived through the Salvadoran Civil War. The reporting trip was an invaluable experience, giving me tools and skills that helped prepare me for every other reporting trip I've taken in my career. During that course, I also produced my first longform piece of journalism that has laid the foundation of all the future enterprise stories I would work on in the coming years.

Joseph De Avila ('07)

National Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where he has worked since 2007.
News anchor in a suit standing at a glass desk in a modern TV studio with a "BBC News" screen in the background, expertly delivering international reporting.

"Built a foundation of reporting skills that I’ve been able to take with me anywhere..."

UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism gave me my first chance to report internationally – helping me chase down stories and produce documentaries in places like Colombia and El Salvador. Most importantly I built a foundation of reporting skills that I’ve been able to take with me anywhere: from Central America, to Germany and the UK.

Carl Nasman ('12)

Presenter | Reporter | Climate Journalist at BBC News
Close up photo of a woman with auburn color shoulder length hair wearing glasses and a blue button down. The background is green grass.

"...enabled me to thrive as a correspondent in Mexico and Central America"

The UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism provided me with a solid foundation in international news reporting and offered me opportunities to report and write on a range of topics, including immigration from Mexico, societal changes in Cuba, and the oil-dependent economy in Venezuela. I chose the J-School because of its dual Master’s program in Journalism and Latin American Studies. The skills I acquired from top-notch journalists enabled me to thrive as a correspondent in Mexico and Central America, where I reported for The Associated Press for over a decade.

Olga R. Rodríguez (’03)

Reporter at The Associated Press

Where Our Alums Work Now

New York Times logo
Reuters logo with an orange circular dotted emblem to the left of the text "Reuters" written in black with a trademark symbol.
The words NASA written in white capital letters on a blue round earth.
CNN logo in white letters on a red background.
NPR logo featuring the lowercase letters "n," "p," and "r" in white. The "n" is on a red background, the "p" is on a black background, and the "r" is on a blue background. This sleek design resonates with the classic aesthetics appreciated by Berkeley Journalism enthusiasts.
Univision logo on a plain white background.
Los Angeles Times logo
Logo of The Washington Post in bold, black Gothic-style font on a white background.

Featured Stories

A portrait of displaced queer people in a Tijuana shelter fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries

jardines

The title "jardines" in lower-cased yellow italicized letters in yellow are centered over a background of trees and sky.

Alfredo Torres' (’23) film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival as part of the Filmmakers of Tomorrow program. 

An activist's quest to find her grandchild decades after Argentina’s “Dirty War.”

The Search

Film poster for the documentary featuring the faces of two women.

Melina Tupa’s ('19) thesis film was named a finalist in the documentary category of the Student Academy Awards.

An innovative transit system in Bogotá, Colombia is transforming a community on the margins

Hope at the end of the Line

Hope at the End of the Line

Brett Marsh's ('21) multimedia thesis project won the ONA’s Student Journalism Award.

Stay up to date: