UC Berkeley J-School and Daily Cal strengthen ties through fellowship program

UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism is building connections with the Daily Californian, thanks to a fellowship backed by the Heising-Simons Foundation. Under the leadership of alumna Liz Simons, the program funds two J-School students to support the award-winning campus newspaper.

Sasha Lekach (’16) and Alice Kantor (’16) are this year’s recipients.

Lekach is a San Francisco native and UC Davis graduate who began her career at the California Aggie. She credits her three years writing for the Aggie’s city news desk for catapulting her into the Bay Area news scene. “The experience at the Aggie led me to work for a San Francisco wire service and several neighborhood newspapers, and brought me to the J-School,” says Lekach. She recently returned to the Bay Area after spending the summer reporting for the Chicago Tribune.

Her fellowship will put Lekach in a classroom with instructors from the J-School’s Investigative Reporting Program to help guide Daily Cal journalists in finding feature stories and sources. “By the end of the semester I hope all or most of the students will have pushed themselves to write bigger, deeper pieces than they have before,” Lekach says.

Kantor is also bringing a rich reporting background to UC Berkeley’s daily newspaper. A native of France, Kantor studied at the Pantheon-Sorbonne in Paris before becoming an assistant producer for a Chinese television channel and a magazine critic for the entertainment blog Brain Damaged. She spent the summer reporting at The Wall Street Journal’s Hong Kong bureau, where she produced videos and contributed to a blog.

For her fellowship position, Kantor will be providing career support and services to the roughly 200 Daily Cal staffers. “My work consists of keeping students up-to-date with networking and internship opportunities, organizing workshops to work on resumes, social media presence, and planning a career fair for recruiters to meet the Daily Cal reporters,” Kantor says.

Now in the second year of a two-year pilot program, the fellowship will be up for possible renewal in 2016.

The Heising-Simons Foundation, which has been a strong supporter of journalism at UC Berkeley for many years, also funds advancement in sustainable energy, science research, and education for young people.

“Our relationship to the foundation is a close one, thanks to the dedication of its chair, Liz Simons, who majored in journalism as a Cal undergrad and worked at the Daily Cal,” says J-School Dean Edward Wasserman. “Heising-Simons donated the building on Hearst that the Daily Cal and the Investigative Reporting Program share, has supported undergraduate journalism instruction, and is funding the Merit Fellow positions that make our students available as Daily Cal Fellows.”

Wasserman commends this year’s fellows and trusts their contributions will be of great value to Berkeley’s undergraduate reporters. “Smart, personable, skilled, energetic, eager to help: Sasha and Alice have exactly the right blend of abilities and personal qualities to be indispensable in whatever ways the Daily Cal’s leadership finds most valuable.”

By Alex Kekauoha (’16)