Longtime Berkeley Journalism Audio Instructor Ben Manilla Dies

Ben Manilla teaching in 2013.

Ben Manilla, a Peabody Award-winning producer, beloved broadcast journalism educator and mainstay of our audio program from 2004–2019, has died.

Manilla died on Monday, September 30, following a long illness. He was 71.

Many of his former students took to social media to share their sadness about the profound loss and their appreciation for him as a mentor and friend.

His career was an outstanding one. Over the course of five decades Manilla spearheaded and operated a variety of companies specializing in audio production, distribution and consulting, and created programming for virtually every radio format and music genre heard on thousands of commercial and public stations across the US and internationally. In June, Manilla saw his decades of work honored when the Library of Congress included digitized recordings of The House of Blues Radio Hour plus nearly 2,000 original audio interviews into their archives during a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Read our recent story about the honor here.

Ben Manilla, an award-winning broadcaster, audio producer and teacher, sits recording in his studio in San Francisco’s Mission District in August 2013. Photo by Dorothy M. Atkins (’15)

A Peabody Award winner, Manilla was also recipient of Columbia University’s Edward Howard Armstrong Award, the International Radio Festival Grand Award, RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award, the Scripps Howard Award, and honors from Associated Press International, Billboard magazine, the Radio and TV News Directors Association, the Blues Foundation and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, among many others.

A native New Yorker and a California resident for more than 30 years, Manilla is survived by wife Eliza Lape, sons Griffin Manilla and Chase Lape, sister Barbara Jean Scarfone and a large extended family.

Read his obituary here.

Professor of Journalism and Former Dean Edward Wasserman shares his remembrances

From left to right: Ben Manilla, Michael Barbaro and Dean Edward Wasserman following a talk at the J-School on September 21, 2018.

A few weeks ago, true to form, Ben invited friends and colleagues to a farewell party in West Marin. He knew he didn’t have long to live, since the two blood cancers that he had kept at bay for the past five or so years had returned in force, and inspired by a dream he had he decided to hold a party to give all of us a chance to say goodbye before he entered hospice. “You only die once,” he wrote.

Sadly, the party will happen without him. But he leaves behind fans, friends and devotees, and I’m among them. Apart from his accomplishments as an exceptional innovator and producer in what we used to call radio, Ben was an educator of great talent. He had taught at the School since 2004 and I made him head of audio journalism at Berkeley in 2014, soon after I became dean of the Journalism School. The podcast era was just beginning to flourish, we were able to raise some money, and Ben laid the foundation for the superb audio program we have today, which is his legacy.

Ben Manilla at the 2012 Peabody Awards. Photo: Courtesy of Eliza Lape. Watch his acceptance speech here.

Ben brought skill, professionalism and sensitivity to his duties at North Gate Hall. His physical profile, tall and imposing, was well recognized, especially because for much of the time he taught there he would be accompanied by his tiny dog Coco, who became a student favorite. I had the pleasure of working with him directly in recording audio programs in the basement studio he helped create. His coaching was confident and insistent but gentle, and it was impossible for me to protest when he demanded multiple takes. You know when you’re in the hands of a real pro, and Ben was that.

Ben definitely drew the short straw when it came to denouements, beginning when he and Eliza took their honeymoon in Maui in 2017 and returned with a rare parasitic infection, which wrought havoc with his health. That was succeeded by his cancers, and the last seven years of his life — a period when he got some of the professional recognition he long deserved — consisted of continuing struggle. He handled this with class and dignity in a way those close to him found impressive and inspiring.

He’ll be missed, and it’s of some comfort for us to pause and appreciate the contributions he made to the field to which he devoted his professional life.

Audio alums and students at Ben Manilla’s retirement party in 2019.