Geeta Anand named director of Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program

Photo: Clara Mokri (’21)

Geeta Anand, acting professor of reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism, has been named director of the School’s Investigative Reporting Program (IRP). Prof. Anand had been serving as interim director since July under Prof. David Barstow, who leads the IRP as the Reva and David Logan Distinguished Chair in Investigative Journalism.

During her time as interim director, Prof. Anand has been instrumental in vastly increasing the number of students participating in the Investigative Reporting Program through new curriculum offerings, brown bag lunches with guest speakers and increased opportunities to work as paid research assistants on a wide range of investigative projects.

“Geeta has been my indispensable partner in our shared mission to recruit, train and mentor the next generation of great investigative journalists,” said Prof. Barstow, who joined Berkeley Journalism in July after a 20-year career with The New York Times, where he won a historic four Pulitzer Prizes. “Together, we intend to build on what my predecessor, the legendary Lowell Bergman, created 14 years ago — a program that teaches rigorous investigative reporting by challenging students to execute ambitious, impactful investigative stories for publication and broadcast by state and national news outlets.”

Prof. Anand came to the School in 2018, after a career at the The New York Times, Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal, where her coverage of corporate corruption won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 and reporting on healthcare was a finalist in 2003. She also won journalism’s top medical science and business reporting prizes during a 27-year career culminating as a foreign correspondent in South Asia. Her nonfiction book, The Cure, was published by HarperCollins and turned into the Harrison Ford movie Extraordinary Measures in 2010.

“Geeta built one career as a huge talent in the newsroom and has begun building a second career as a huge talent in the classroom,” said Ed Wasserman, Berkeley Journalism dean. “Her IRP directorship will enable her to bring her skills to bear in yet another realm, guiding and shaping an institution, and partnering her with David gives us a leadership team of immense accomplishment.”

Prof. Anand will continue to lead the School’s cornerstone, immersive first-semester J200 program and serve as editorial chief of its Richmond Confidential local news site.

“It has been so exciting to work with David to train a vastly more diverse next generation of investigative journalists,” said Prof. Anand. “The enormous challenges of today demand more rigorous investigative reporting from reporters with a wide range of lived experiences who can identify, investigate and powerfully tell the most important stories of our time.”