Several Bay Area publications have featured stories produced by students and recent alumni of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
The SFGate.com ran a story on the desegregation of the California prison system, written by Robert Rogers (MJ ’11) and Guilherme Kfouri, visiting scholar from City University, London. The issue is complex, as integration at prisons can lead to violence.
The local Fox affiliate KTVU published a video and text story. on a parolee sweep in the city of Richmond. The story was in response to how local communities are dealing with the state of California’s efforts to reduce the overcrowded prison population. The story was written and produced by Robert Rogers (MJ ’11) and Guilherme Kfouri, a UC Berkeley visiting scholar from City University London.
San Francisco news startup The Bay Citizen ran a story from Alexa Vaughn (MJ ’11) about the difficulties ex-convicts have in obtaining employment due to the vague previous-felony conviction box that appear on most employment application forms.
News21 visiting scholar Matt Buxton of University of Nebraska wrote a story for KTVU on how the California prison system would deal with the high profile case of recently convicted BART transit officer Johannes Mehserle. Mehserle, a white officer, shot and killed an unarmed African-American man, Oscar Grant, during a disturbance on a BART train on January 1, 2009. The story has also run on the journalism-school run local site Oakland North and SFGate.com.
Visiting scholar Isabella Cota, who joins the school from City University London, worked with Jude Joffe-Block (MJ ’10) on a video story about transgender inmates for KTVU. The story was in response to a study performed at UC Irvine that found transgender inmates are often the victims of assaults while in prison.
Amanda Dyer (MJ ’10) writes a story for the Oakland Tribune about a program that buses children to visit their parents in prison. The story touched on the idea that incarceration affects more than just the inmates behind bars.
Jude Joffe-Block (MJ ’10) wrote a story for the Bay Citizen about GPS monitoring devices, and the complications of tracking thousands of parolees across the state of California. Photos for the project were taken by Helene Goupil (MJ ’10) and Armand Emamdjomeh (MJ ’10).
Robert Rogers (MJ ’11) produced a radio story for KALW on the Prison University Project at San Quentin. The Crosscurrents show from KALW also featured an audio slideshow produced by Robert Rogers (MJ ’11) and Armand Emamdjomeh (MJ ’10). The prison university program at San Quentin helps to reduce the high recidivism rate in California.
KALW radio broadcasted a story from Berkeley visiting scholar Isabella Cota, originally from City University, London, on the decision to parole sick inmates to ease strains on the California budget. The story also ran in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Richmond Confidential local news site run out of the journalism school featured a package from Robert Rogers (MJ ’11) and Armand Emamdjomeh (MJ ’10) on the perspectives of Richmond parolees on prison segregation.
Students Angela Kilduff (MJ ’10), Robert Rogers (MJ ’11), Steve Saldivar (MJ ’10) and Karen McIntyre (MJ ’11) collaborated to report for the Bay Citizen on a project called Get On The Bus, which buses children of convicted inmates to the women’s prison in Chowchilla for mother’s day. Robert Rogers also provided a side bar story for the program on the long journey kids must take for them to be reunited with their parents.
Amanda Dyer (MJ ’10) wrote a story for KTVU on the Father’s Day Get on the Bus program while Steve Saldivar (MJ ’10) and Matt Buxton produced a photo gallery for the project. The program reunites children of convicted inmates with their incarcerated families by bussing them to the prison on holidays.
News21 is a national program funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in partnership with the Carnegie Foundation. Twelve universities participate by reporting on projects and producing content for local and national publications. UC Berkeley is covering the topic of incarceration in California. More information can be found at News21.com
The UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is a founding partner of the Bay Citizen.